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Category: Life and culture

Away for a bit

Published by mhelbert on July 14, 2012

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been here. There’s simply been too much on my plate to spend time with this blog. My dad was back in hospital again. It really sux getting old. He’s a tough old codger, though. And, I started at a new position at work last week. New stuff to learn and not a lot of time to learn it. Ah, yes! I love it when they move the cheese.
Anyway, I’ve spent the better share of the last month ruminating on how the Euro-American worldview is simply NOT the best way to live a full and abundant life. I’ve read a couple books from a Zen point of view. One of them by a Jesuit priest who uses Zen practices to deepen his spiritual life with Yahweh. Interesting stuff that I will comment on later. I’ve also been studying material written from a First Inhabitant point of view. I have been encouraged to look at this by Randy Woodley. He is an American Cherokee with a Ph.D from Asbury Seminary. Having been following his online works and blogs, as well as working through his newest tome, Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision, has given me much to meditate on. This, too, I’ll comment on later. All of this to say, I am in the process of trying to reconcile the Euro-American culture with the Very Good Creation that Yahweh has provided for all living things to dwell in. It’s difficult. Actually, it’s impossible. We who are of European descent have much to bring to the discussion, but we are not the answer or telos of that discussion.

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Reconciled life

Published by mhelbert on June 29, 2012

Today I was reading in Romans 5. Paul wrote that because of Yahweh’s great love we have been reconciled to God. Whereas we were enemies, (by our own doing), we are now friends who are saved from wrath. I began to wonder what a reconciled life might look like. If we are no longer subjected to wrath, how should we live? Honestly, I can’t give a good or comprehensive answer to this. What might be evidenced in my life would be wholly inappropriate for someone else. But, I think there are some things that warrant mention.
If we live our lives with an eye to what others may think, even if it is to be a so-called “witness”; that is wrong. Jesus made it clear that any good that we do should be done for the Father alone. Yet, I’ve heard many good intentioned people state that we must watch ourselves and maintain some kind of piety so that others will see and desire to live in a similar fashion. So far, I’ve not seen the masses storming the gates to get in.
I think that a reconciled life may allow people to maintain a kind of aloofness, or detachment, from the concerns of the world system and culture. I’m amused at some people who take the markets and politics and other things so seriously. It is the end of the world as we know it now that the Supreme Court has upheld the health care act. Yet, these same people will make profit hand over fist at the expense of this act. We are not affected by this. Ours is not the way of culture and politics.  Ours is the way of reconciliation. Ours is the way of the cross.
I think that reconciled people are reattached to the very good creation. Where we were once cut off, especially in the West, we are put into a right relation with the earth and all that it contains. We experience God’s shalom, or as one writer put it, the Harmony Way. According to Genesis, humans were put in here to serve and protect the earth as God’s eikons. We are stewards who must answer to the Lord of the Manor. Unreconciled people view the earth as humanity’s servant. Something to be used and abused to fulfill our own appetites and greed. Not so, says the scripture. We, being reconciled to God, are also reconciled to the very good creation.
I think that this is a good topic for reflection. What do reconciled people look like?  How does this affect our relationships with Yahweh; others; the cosmos? I don’t know for sure, but God does. I trust that we will be led to greater clarity and understanding because of Yahweh’s great love.

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God’s Furious Love

Published by mhelbert on June 14, 2012

I just finished Brennan Manning’s The Furious Longing of God. I have always enjoyed reading Manning. He showed me that I am a Ragamuffin. That was a great help to me. It’s amazing how that kind of insight can help to do away with pretensions.
This book had as its underlying theme a verse from Song of Songs. It reads, “I belong to my Beloved’s. His desire is for me” (7:10). As I reflected on this I was taken back a few months to when I really began to realize Yahweh’s relentless pursuit of me. Yet, it has been so easy for me to slip into the notion that God is enthroned in a heaven that I cannot reach. God is attentive to my prayer, but somewhat aloof. We pray for God’s grace and wisdom. We pray for God to win our battles. We pray that others will see things clearly, (code for ‘My Way’). But, the Lover of our souls desires us. The Creator/Yahweh has walked among us because of that desire. Jesus, the one and only Son loved enough to change water to wine and to heal lepers. He, the true Image of God, went willingly to the cross because of Yahweh’s great passion for us. 
Yet, we debate about subjective genitives and whether Adam and Eve were actual people. We take the life, death, resurrection and ascension and call it ‘the Christ event.’ People debate about justification and sola scriptura, making these what the good news is about. We have to think and believe certain ways or else we are sliding down some slippery slope. (I don’t know about you, but sled riding is Fun!)
And, all the while God is still relentlessly pursuing us. The more I consider this love of God, the more I am being convinced that this other stuff doesn’t really matter. Frankly, it does not matter to me if the creation story is a factual news story or if it is Israel’s story written as a result of the captivity. God loves me. I am not going to get into discussions with people who think that they understand any of the so-called laws of thermodynamics. It simply is not important when one considers that “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10b). John the Elder wrote that God is love. We are under compulsion to follow Jesus’ command to love one another as He has loved us. We are the recipients of Yahweh’s unrestrained and furious love. The rest is just fluff.

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Church: why don’t I fit in?

Published by mhelbert on June 9, 2012

One of my favorite Christmas television programs is “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” Yeah, the animation is crude, but it’s a good story. I mean, who doesn’t love Yukon Cornelius? Anyway, one of the themes in the story is how so-called misfits find fulfillment and a place to fit in. The songs of Herbie and Rudolph touch the hearts of many people, including me.

Herbie: Why am I such a misfit?
I am not just a nitwit.
You can’t fire me I quit,
since I don’t fit in.

Rudolph: Why am I such a misfit?
I am not just a nitwit.
Just because my nose glows,
why don’t I fit in?

I feel this way…Why don’t I fit in? I used to think that I could belong with people who were anti-everything except rock-n-roll and peace. (Ok, I’m dating myself here.) But, I found that I did not fit in with the reality of society and economics. So, I joined with those who call themselves conservative. I even had a sign in 1980 that read, “Vote Republican for a change.” I set myself within the evangelical church and gave myself wholeheartedly to the white, middle-class conservative chase for the American dream. Again, I did not fit in. I led worship for many years in a church that embraced a personal relationship with God through Christ and a literal approach to the scriptures. Our Reformed theology informed our understanding of life in the Body of Christ. Don’t fit there, either. I have attended liturgical churches. I really like them! The liturgies speak volumes that a church that sings some songs then has a lecture cannot. But, here again, I can’t seem to fit the Creator/Yahweh who walked among us into these ecclesial boxes. And, I don’t really fit all that well.
So, I have brought this to Yahweh in prayer. Where do I fit?!?! Well, God has not said, “Mike! Go there! You will fit in nicely.” What I have begun to sense, however, is a need to re-imagine church. There is a lot of material in the scriptures to feed the imagination. There is also quite a lot of church history that can inform reflection. What I have been considering so far has to do with living ‘abundantly.’ John the Evangelist wrote in chapter 10 about Jesus, the good shepherd, coming in order to bring ‘abundant life’ in contrast to those who came to destroy life. There has been a lot of discussion about what this ‘abundant life’ looks like. Most of the talk has to do with trying to live a morally exemplary life in which God is able to bestow blessings on those practitioners. God can pour out abundance on those who follow God’s law. Sorry, too much like self-works to me. This appears to be some humanly induced means to an end.
I was reading Taliesin, by Shephen Lawhead and stumbled across something that caused a spark of understanding. In the story, Elphin, the king of a tribe of Britons, has just returned with his warband from service to Rome for the last time. A great feast and celebration was ordered. In it, the

meat began to sizzle…Beer, foamy and dark, and sweet, golden mead flowed in gushing fountains from barrela and butt to horn and jar. Whole carcasses of beef, pork and mutton roasted on massive iron spits. The caer rang end to end in song, strong Celtic voices soaring like birds in wild, joyous flight.

Eventually, Hafgan the bard, stood to sing a song of might and victory. This, to me, sounded like abundant life! It was a full-blown community celebration complete with pigs & beer; stories & songs; food, fun and koinonia.
I also think of the early gatherings of the saints for meals with wine & song & Word. I think of Jesus at Cana; the Son of Man eating and drinking. I think of Boaz and the community gathered at the harvest. I imagine their joy in that culture deeply connected to God’s good Earth. I remember gathering with brothers and sisters to watch a football game on the tube with chili and beer. I imagine people who live hard and love hard. I imagine Church. What would this look like fleshed out? How can people live abundantly in koinonia? I’m not sure there is a method that can be gleaned from this. No institutionalizing of this kind of living faith. But, I will continue to ruminate on it. I will continue to seek Yahweh’s desires in this.

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Walking in the light in a dark world

Published by mhelbert on May 26, 2012

Over the past months one topic has been recurring in my daily prayer. It is the only thing that has brought me to tears. That is humanity’s ability to inflict damage on itself and the world around us.
Awhile back it was human trafficking and slavery. I just cannot understand how people can use and destroy others in the name of greed and profit. Today, as I reflected on the violence and hatred in the world I saw human kind as a virus that has infected the very good creation. I could see Mr. Smith from the Matrix talking to Neo about the ‘smell’ that the human virus caused. A repulsive stench that needed eradication. I wondered, then, why Creator/Yahweh continues to tolerate this ‘infection.’ We utter meaningless crap about ‘original sin’ and ‘total depravity.’ Yet, we sit on our platitudes and do nothing. We simply accept the status quo and rail against liberal politicians. There are a few voices out there trying to alert us to the dangers. Yet, no one listens.
Can anyone answer me?
How can a grown man kill a 6 year old boy and toss his body into the garbage? How can a white community harass and destroy a benevolent community made up of non-whites? How can a society build and stockpile weapons designed to utterly destroy other societies? How can people steal others and sell them into slavery? How can people worship a green guy named George? This idol is made out of paper, but is used to control, or destroy, entire economies? (Don’t believe me, check out Greece and Africa.) How can we value this false god more than real people and real creatures who live and breath?
My prayer was, and is, “Yahweh! I am spent. I don’t know what to do. How long, O Lord, will You allow this? When will You raise Your people up as one to stand in the face of this evil? Let Your Spirit, Ruach Elohim, hover and brood over the face of this chaos as You did in the beginning. Let order come through the speech of Your mouth. Let Your voice be heard once again bringing life out of death.”

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When did “christian” become an adjective?

Published by mhelbert on May 5, 2012

I am revisiting a book I read many years ago. It is What on Earth Are We Doing?: Finding Our Place As Christians in the World by John Fischer. I read it when it was new in the late 1990s. As I pick among the many nuggets of good stuff that Fischer wrote, I am reminded of why this particular book made such an impact on me. In fact, I offered it to other leaders in my church who, whether they read it or not, never seemed to be captured by Fischer’s insights. You see, it takes contemporary evangelicalism to task. In our world we have attempted to build a parallel to what many would call “the world.” You know, that place where sin and debauchery lay waiting to waylay us and subjugate us to the cruel taskmaster of “worldliness.” So, according to Fischer, the word ‘christian’ became an adjective. Rather than the noun that it originally was coined as, someone who was a little Christ, we have made it descriptive. There is christian music and christian bookstores. We have christian novels and christian self-help books. We go to christian concerts and seminars and grocery stores and barbers. We have created a new “christian” world that allows us to have all of the stuff that the other ‘bad’ world has, but with a veneer of christian respectability. Is this what the gospel calls us to? Are we to insulate ourselves against the supposed enemy called human existence?
Back in the early 1970s I was part of the so-called Jesus Movement. One thing that we set as an objective was to show the world how it was possible to live according to the 1st century model of church that we read about in the book of Acts. We figured that if we could show people that this lifestyle ‘worked’ they would beat down our doors to get a piece of it. After all, as Fischer noted, we are a very pragmatic culture. If something ‘works,’ it absolutely MUST be true. We were, in fact, building the foundation of a ‘christian’ worldview. Today, one can look at the myriad organizations and churches that tout that their version of christianity works! You can be successful and have all of your needs met, just ‘step right up’ and climb aboard the gospel train. No more worries, no more stress, no more of the troubles of ‘Your’ world. We actually believed this. And, we preached it. The trouble was, it didn’t work. And, those on the outside could see that it didn’t work. We had televangelists talking the ‘christian’ talk, but failing miserably in life. Co-workers, who saw us everyday struggling to hold two worlds in tension, knew that we were failing. Now, we wonder why the culture has marginalized the message of Christ. We continue to try and show the world how good it is to be in a ‘christian’ world, but they aren’t watching. They really don’t care. As far as they are concerned we are a rerun of some bad 50s sitcom.
So, what to do? Honestly, I don’t have answers. That’s a good thing, I think. We cannot hold Yahweh in some box where we can let Him out when we need Him, but then close it when He gets too close. We want comfortable answers to all of life’s questions. After all, won’t that prove to the outside world that we are correct? Will that not vindicate us? Let me share a quote from Fischer’s book. This is something that he quoted from a lecture series given by Robert Farrar Capon:

The Gospel proclaims a disreputable salvation. It hands us neither an intellectually respectable God nor a morally serious one. It gives us an action of God in Christ that is foolishness to the Greek in us and a scandal to our Jewishness. It presents us with a Sabbath-breaking Messiah whose supreme act is to be executed as a criminal-and who then rises and disappears, leaving us with a blithe assurance that everything is repaired even though, as far as we can see, nothing has been fixed.

It seems that God is way bigger than we can imagine. God’s way of working in the cosmos is not what we would necessarily think it should be. Living as the bible seems to prescribe should work! But, we live in the time between now and the age to come. This life is filled with paradox that cannot be answered. There is a mystery about Yahweh that we cannot possibly understand. Not all of our questions will be answered, nor should they. Living in a separate, disinfected world is not God’s way. Getting closer to Yahweh, letting the Reign of God flourish within us is a way to start. Letting the glorious, good creation immerse us into the very presence of the Creator/Yahweh who walked among us is a way to begin living. Separating ourselves from the very world we are to be witnesses to this Great and Loving Father is not.

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The Next Generation

Published by mhelbert on May 3, 2012

And, I don’t mean Star Trek.
There’s been a lot of talk for many years about how to prepare the so-called ‘next generation’ of Christ followers to carry the faith forward. This discussion is usually held among the elders of the present or near-past generation about young, mostly male, children of these elders. (If you’re not confused yet, you will be.)
Anyway, I want to point out at least one fallacy and raise questions about this position. On the surface, this idea sounds plausible. Deuteronomy discusses the importance of teaching children about God and the works that had been performed by God, i.e., the Exodus. There also seems to be some age division that took place between those who were old enough to fight and those who were not. But, throughout the Old Testament a ‘generation’ referred to all who were alive at any given time. It was not neatly divided into some specific number of years, say, 40. Even those who espouse the above idea of training the ‘yet-to-be-involved’ age group, there is no consensus on what a generation actually is. If we want to hand the reigns over to those who are younger, then we need to include them NOW in the faith. That includes in all levels of leadership and ministry. The fallacy of generational divisions simply doesn’t hold in view of scripture. Some may want to argue about the age of 13 being when males became full members of the community. That does little to help us today as we try to integrate both male and female into active roles in the church. In fact, this is pretty much ceremonial anyway. We really don’t trust young people at this age. Yet, it is precisely at this age that we must begin to integrate them into the community. We need to let them learn through practice, not preaching, how to live and grow in the community of faith. They need the opportunities to succeed and fail. Yet, we continue to talk.
One of the problems I see is, what are we leaving for them? We seem to want them to continue just as we have, to be the ‘protectors of orthodoxy’ in a hostile world. But, what if they don’t see things that way? What if God has other plans? Not only do we not trust youth, but we don’t trust Yahweh to keep and grow the body of Christ! We leave a legacy of paranoia and conflict. We leave our battles with the culture, but not the life necessary to navigate a way through them. Many young people do not share the culture war mentality of the modern church. Yet, we try to press the importance of this perceived war into their minds. Let it go, Church! Our battle is NOT with the culture. Our battle cannot be delineated along conservative and liberal lines. Our battle is not with politics and economics. Our battle is a spiritual one that requires spiritual communities. It requires people willing to step outside of doctrines and dogma that divide and hold to that which unifies. Even if that means joining with ‘outsiders.’
Young people need to be included. They need to collaborate and build community. They need to be a part of something significant. If we keep trying to crowbar something that doesn’t make sense to them into their lives, they will bolt and do it themselves, anyhow. Maybe that would not be such a bad idea.

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Politics as Usual?

Published by mhelbert on April 30, 2012

I have some difficulty with politics. First, as a Christ follower, I put my trust in Jesus, not politicians. I consider my first loyalty and citizenship to be with Him. So, when I see and hear people invoking Christ and the Scripture to further their own political careers, I get a tad upset. In the book, “Contemplative Prayer” by Thomas Merton, it seem he had a similar concern. Written in the late 1960s, he put his finger on a piece of the issue.
“On thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history. Politicians may indeed make history, but the meaning of what they are making turns out, inexorably, to have been something in a language they will never understand, which contradicts their own programs and turns all their achievements into an absurd parody of their promises and ideals.
Of course, it is true that religion on a superficial level, religion that is untrue to itself and to God, easily comes to serve as the ‘opium of the people.’ And this takes place whenever religion and prayer invoke the name of God for reasons and ends that have nothing to do with [God]. When religion becomes a mere artificial facade to justify a social or economic system-when religion hands over its rites and language completely to the political propagandist, and when prayer becomes the vehicle for a purely secular ideological program-then religion does tend to become an opiate. It deadens the spirit enough to permit the substitution of a superficial fiction and mythology for this truth of life. And this brings about the alienation of the believer, so that his religious zeal becomes political fanaticism. His faith in God, while preserving its traditional formulas, becomes in fact faith in his own nation, class or race.”
I have seen this tendency from all sides in the political process. It nauseates me. I especially have ill-feelings concerning the policies of those on the so-called “religious right” who justify injustice, (if that’s possible), in the name of some conservative economic ethic that privileges those who have against those who do not. Merton quotes Raissa Maritain, “If there were fewer wars, less thirst to dominate and to exploit others, less national egoism, less egoism of class and caste, if mane were more concerned for his brother, and really wanted to collect together, for the good of the human race, all the resources which science places at his disposal especially today, there would be on earth fewer populations deprived of their necessary sustenance, there would be fewer children who die or are incurably weakened by undernourishment.” And, I might add, fewer reasons to go to war and wage terror against others.
Just food for thought.

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From the keyboard of Diana Butler Bass

Published by mhelbert on April 13, 2012

I read this today over at Huffington Post. It seems that this person is zeroed in on some of the issues that we are wrestling with today. I especially appreciated the way she frames the questions that people ask of religion and spirituality, “
Religion always entails the “3B’s” of believing, behaving, and belonging. Over the centuries, Christianity has engaged the 3B’s in different ways, with different interrogators and emphases. For the last 300 years or so, the questions were asked as follows:
1) What do I believe? (What does my church say I should think about God?)
2) How should I behave? (What are the rules my church asks me to follow?)
3) Who am I? (What does it mean to be a faithful church member?)
But the questions have changed. Contemporary people care less about what to believe than how they might believe; less about rules for behavior than in what they should do with their lives; and less about church membership than in whose company they find themselves. The questions have become:
1) How do I believe? (How do I understand faith that seems to conflict with science and pluralism?)
2) What should I do? (How do my actions make a difference in the world?)
3) Whose am I? (How do my relationships shape my self-understanding?)
The foci of religion have not changed–believing, behaving, and belonging still matter. But the ways in which people engage each area have undergone a revolution”
I agree that we can get mired in the past. The things that once were relevant and life-giving seem to have lost their luster. New positions and, yes, questions arise that demand our attention.

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