kingdom grace

Since the mass exodus from our CLB over a year ago, my husband and I have experienced the reconciliation of many of our relationships that were severed during our years of isolation. For the most part, this has been really positive.

However, in recent months, I have been aware of emotions stirred up that I thought were put to rest. In the process of walking with people who have just entered detox, we have encountered bits and pieces of the stories that have been told about us. No really big surprises, just details that make sense and cause us to say, “no wonder.”

One of the things which has come up repeatedly is the extent to which my former best friend went to to imply scandal concerning my husband. Hearing these stories has required that I step back into the cycle of forgiveness and letting go of offense and judgment.

The other thing that I struggle with is that in spite of the fact that some of the falseness at the church has been exposed, we personally were not automatically vindicated. While people feel free to talk to us now, many have not reconsidered what they were told about us for several years. Many still believe there was some sort of tawdry scandal in our lives. The tarnish still remains.

It was in this frame of mind that I recently encountered my former best friend at the coffee shop. It was like entering the Twilight Zone. No one shuns me anymore, so I wasn’t really prepared for this encounter.

She was there with another former close friend of mine, and I was with ex-CLBers who are mutual friends. During the 5-10 minutes we stood at their table visiting, she completely ignored my presence in spite of the fact that I was less than 3 feet from her. Apparently I was the only one of the group deserving of this special treatment.

Shunning is a group game that requires a target, who is being punished for deviating from established norms.

The Emotional Payoff: “We feel more powerful because we can punish people.”

Exposing the Game: Shunning can be difficult to expose, because denial of the game’s existence is an integral part of the game itself. Attempts to get shunning players to admit their tactics make the target appear needy and pathetic.

(from Secrets to Winning at Office Politics)

In the moment, I was struggling with my inner dialogue. This conversation from Barb’s blog was reverberating in my mind as I struggled with how to respond.

Barb: I will not slink around them though as if I have done something wrong any more though. I will not play the game any longer as if I deserve to be shunned. If someone is uncomfortable talking to me I am apt to ask them why all the discomfort. If they ignore me, I am apt to ask why they do that. If they pretend that everything is just fine, I may ask why they are pretending with me when I know they have huge problems with me.

My response: I do believe that for the people specifically responsible for the abuse, the public facade of niceness is an extension of the abuse forcing you to once again participate in covering up their falseness.

You see, I know her well enough to know exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. I also know that I am not deserving of that kind of treatment and that it is part of the dysfunctional game that has been played for so many years. I don’t want to play the game anymore.

Somewhere between calling out the elephant in the room and refusing to play the nice game, I became mute. I walked away thinking, “that was really bizarre.” I was frustrated and disappointed with my response and lack of engagement.

Ever since then, I have been wrestling with the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation.

The Shack says, “Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.”

I can and have forgiven. The responsibility for this broken relationship is not mine. It wasn’t my choice, and my friend has not expressed any interest in reconciliation. Good, I’m off the hook. Or am I?

What is my degree of responsibility for reconciliation? It seems everywhere I turn, people are writing about forgiveness.

From the book Ain’t Too Proud to Beg:

The forgiveness that Jesus’ subjects show to each other and to every neighbor, stranger, and enemy extends the fruit of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth, actualizes the atonement, and renews creation. We who receive forgiveness are newly created and newly restored, and we who offer it are co-creators and co-redeemers, deputies of the King.

Prayer for persecutors and love of enemies presupposes forgiveness of debtors. Jesus has prefaced his prayer with the command to go to any brother or sister or accuser who has something against us and be reconciled.

Peggy’s post, When Enemy Wears the Mask of Friend contains these wise thoughts:

Most of the people who are at the center of wounds in my memory are supposed to be my friends, not my enemies. It is an important thing to bring “enemy” closer to home, just as it is an important thing to bring “sin” down to not choosing to love…As we look at the faces of those who have wounded us, we must recognize the image — the cracked Eikon — of God.

May I have the courage, first, to call the name “enemy” where, in truth, it lies … and then to ask the Holy Spirit to do a work in my heart and memory that results in power for forgiveness of and love for and restoration of the name Eikon where Enemy once sat.

Alan Knox addressed reconciliation in his recent series on Matthew 18:

“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21)

Peter understood that if his brother sinned against him and then reconciled, sinned against him and then reconciled, sinned against him and then reconciled…he may have to continue to humble himself and go to his brother and seek reconciliation… how many times? Surely seven times would be enough. Surely, Jesus, if I do this seven times, doesn’t this show that my brother really isn’t concerned about me and that I shouldn’t forgive him any longer?

Larry Chouinard’s thoughts on Matthew 18:

In the Kingdom the offended pursues the offender so that together they can experience the transforming power of reconciliation. There are no cold wars in the Kingdom, either you are working for peace and restored relationships, or you are part of a dysfunctional body. It is in this pursuit of peace that Jesus promises to be in our midst.

Too often the values of the Kingdom are gutted and muted by the hypothetical and the failure to imagine the possibilities. If you are counting how many times you’ve forgiven someone, you’re not really forgiven them, only postponing revenge.

I don’t know what reconciliation would look like in this situation. I am not really interested in a restored friendship. Whatever reconciliation might look like, it would start with me letting go of my right to truth and justice and being friendly in the face of ongoing rejection and arrogance. I am willing to be humiliated by this person who wants to punish me, if I can remember that there is a bigger picture than what I am experiencing in the moment.

When a friend who witnessed this encounter invited me to coffee recently, she asked if I might prefer to go somewhere where an encounter would be less likely.

I said, “No, I would welcome a do-over. Perhaps I will do better next time.”

The subtitle of this book by Paul Metzger is “Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church.”

Hopefully I can adequately describe what an important book this was for me to read. Growing up in the rural midwest, I have lived relatively sheltered from race and class issues. Because of that though, I have also lived a safe and secure distance from the realities of poverty and need.

Since becoming involved in the emerging conversation, my eyes have been opened to the poor and marginalized. In many ways though, I have not known how to cross the chasm between “us” and “them” in ways that didn’t exude condescension. I have been aware of the lack in my understanding and perspective, but ineffective at developing a response beyond charity and guilt for my position of privilege.

In my opinion this is an important book for all evangelicals and for suburban christians in particular. Paul uncovers our blindspots and challenges the idea that it is okay for us to remain segregated in our comfortable ghettoes of sameness. He provides a solid theology of engagement and gives language and doctrine to a way of relating with others based in solidarity and unity.

Paul first exposes the misdirected focus of the evangelical church culture in the areas of power politics and consumerism. He addresses how both of these have contributed to division in the church. He suggests that in spite of the fact that we share communion in the body, in many ways we remain unreconciled to one another. The vision he portrays of the church as an alternative community living in the reality of relationships restructured according to the value of the kingdom is a prophetic call that must be heeded.

I won’t go into great detail in this review. I plan on posting several more specific posts about topics in the book over the next week or two. This is not a feel-good, entertaining book to read, but it is possibly one of the most important books I have read as far as the impact it made on my views about relationships within the body of Christ.

Recently, Threads Media gave me the opportunity to review Michael Kelley’s study, Tough Sayings of Jesus II. This would be great material for group study and discussion. Follow the links for further info about the material.

As a part of an online book tour, I had the following email interview with Michael. His responses here reflect the engaging style of his writing.

Grace: Michael, while I can see that most any age group would benefit from the lessons, I wondered if you wrote the series with a particular group in mind.

MK: While the Bible study is targeted at 18-34 year olds, it’s really appealing to a certain mindset more than an age demographic. I think all over the place people are rising up across age lines with similar desires and spiritual markers - things like depth of study and experience, community with those around them, and a responsibility to leave the world different than they found it.

Grace: I enjoyed your portrayal of Jesus as more than the two-dimensional flannelgraph Jesus of our Sunday school days. Are there aspects of Jesus’ character and nature that you feel need to be emphasized?

MK: I think I’m shooting for a more holistic view of Jesus here. While we might not admit it, most Christ-followers have “niceness” as a predominant attribute of their Jesus. He’s nice to kids, sinners, and probably puppies.

I do think Jesus is nice, but as you read through the gospels, we start to see that in a lot of situations He didn’t take the nice road. He was intentionally divisive, hard-hitting, and difficult. He tried to get rid of crowds more than He tried to gather them. That flies in the face of the Jesus I am more comfortable with, but that’s what we find.

Grace: You mentioned the story of Jesus turning the tables at the temple. What are the things that you see that the church or christians do now to hinder or obstruct others in their approach to God?

MK: In many ways, I think we have created a whole Christian sub-culture that has its own lingo, stars, and candy. Maybe we like that subculture even more than we like Jesus, because the subculture was implicitly created to make us comfortable. Stuff like that I think tends to get in the way of an authentic and deep walk with Christ.

Grace: In your speaking and teaching, who have you found to be most open to and willing to embrace the idea of a “deeply uncomfortable” walk with Jesus?

MK: I think it’s been the people who have been forced into a situation where they had to wrestle with God. Cancer, car wrecks, divorce, virtually any painful situation like that brings us to a point where theology confronts reality, and sometimes seems to contradict it. It’s that kind of situation that makes people wrestle. And their walk with Christ is already a little uncomfortable.

But also, there’s a whole group of people who have grown up indoctrinated in the subculture of Christianity, and in the end, have felt some element of inauthenticity about it. They - and we - want something more. Something deeper and more real.

Grace: Do you have a favorite story or response from this series?

MK: My take on the cursing of the fig tree seems to illicit interesting responses. There’s been a few times when I have talked through that, that people have disagreed with what I think is happening there.

But maybe the most meaningful has been people’s response to the session about Lazarus. I don’t think we tend to think about the emotional life of God too much, but if we are emotional beings, and we were created in His image, then it stands to reason that He is actually more deeply emotional than we are. The thought of a God who would enter into someone’s moment of pain, even though He knows the happy ending, seems to resonate with a lot of folks. That’s been cool.

Grace: Finally, you mentioned a fondness for certain fruit-flavored candy. I was just wondering what your favorite color is?

MK: Purple. No, red. No wait - Purple. Darn my fickleness!

Grace: Purple?!! You must be kidding. I usually give away the purple ones.

Thanks Michael. I enjoyed the book and your perspective on the parables and what they show us about Jesus when we take the time to look beyond the surface of the story, and thanks for your great responses to my questions.

More from Consuming Jesus:

“All too often, we think of the church simply as a building with programs aimed at making sure the church survives and thrives. On this model, people do everything possible to keep the show going. This view of the church is not missional.

And as far as the poor in the surrounding community are concerned, they are viewed simply as a side issue - simply the beneficiaries of our charity. But charity does not build community. It fosters separation, keeping the poor at the far end of our outstretched hand.

As Christ’s community, we must move to the place of seeing the church as an extension of Christ’s missional presence in the community, where justice for the poor is central. Christ followers must go to the poor, not primarily for the purpose of inviting the poor to church, but to be the church in their midst.”

Muy bueno!

The emerging/missional posters are now in Spanish Portuguese thanks to Luis Batista at Renevatio Cafe.

Follow this link to see all of them in Spanish Portuguese or here for the English version.

Interesting posts by Rose and Makeesha (also her follow-up post) about power and empowerment.

Great quote by Eugene Cho:

“Let’s be honest…most full-time ministry workers are so consumed by ministry and the culture of ministry, they rarely engage and interface with the larger world. It’s a double edge sword because while ministry workers are regularly calling the church to love their neighbors and such, they’re rarely doing [or able] to do the very thing they are preaching. And consequently, many ministry leaders grow to be monolingual. They can only speak one language - the language of the church. And in the long run, it’ll become a detriment to the missional purpose of the body of Christ.”

This is a danger for any of us if our lives and friendships are limited to the church sphere.

Peter Rollins posted a quote from his new book, The Fidelity of Betrayal. Here is a bit of what he shared:

“Yet perhaps it is precisely this that we are being called to: engaging in that most difficult task of putting our religion to death so that a religion without religion can spring forth.”

USA Today featured an article about The Shack phenomenon as the book climbed to #8 on their list.

A great review by Ron of The Shack with a balanced perspective on the theological issues.

Peggy wrote the creative post The Parable of the Jesus Creeder for Scot McKnight’s blog.

Knowing my fondness for capital campaigns, Mary pointed out this item on her list of bulletin bloopers…

27. The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday : “I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours”.

Here’s a related quote from Consuming Jesus, which I hope to review next week:

“Churches must not look the other way while holding out the offering plate, taking the money people have made, to finance their latest church building projects at the expense of the poor.”

Ouch!

Interesting post by Randy about paying up for years of consumerism and overindulgence.

And this post by Mike Todd, A Spending Culture.

John LaGrou shared this quote from End of Suburbia, James Kunstler:

You can state categorically that any enterprise now supersized is likely to fail — everything from the federal government to big corporations to huge institutions. If you can find a way to do something practical and useful on a smaller scale than it is currently being done, you are likely to have food in your cupboard and people who esteem you.

An entire social infrastructure of voluntary associations, co-opted by the narcotic of television, needs to be reconstructed. Local institutions for care of the helpless will have to be organized. Local politics will be much more meaningful as state governments and federal agencies slide into complete impotence. Lots of jobs here for local heroes.

Quit wishing and start doing. The best way to feel hopeful about the future is to get off your ass and demonstrate to yourself that you are a capable, competent individual resolutely able to face new circumstances.

This relates directly to the ongoing discussion about the church and sustainability.

I thought this picture was amusing. It reminded me of the video clip that went around about “real men who pisseth against the wall.” (ht Marc VanderWoude)

I don’t typically post on Saturday, but this post at The Paris Project caught my attention, and it reminded me of a passage from Consuming Jesus that I wanted to share.

This baseball analogy is credited to John Perkins:

Two teams have been playing baseball. After seven inning, it comes out that the team that is ahead has been cheating the whole game: as a result, the score is 20 to 0.

This team makes apologies, but they don’t change the score going into the final two innings. Obviously, the team that is down 20-0 is still in an unfair, severely disadvantaged position.

A history of disadvantage does carry over into the present.

The situation is far too complex to attempt to alleviate the problem without addressing structural issues of disadvantage.

Concerning the gender issue, I hear the frustration on both sides. Does this analogy help to clarify the point at which women have entered the game?

There are many men who are willing to embrace the full participation of women. They do not understand why their stance of acceptance isn’t adequate.

Why are women still crying out for inclusion and empowerment?

What can be done?

As in can’t leave the house, school’s called off, hope there’s enough bread and milk to last until tomorrow.

Note the date, May 2.

Crazy!

The nature of the trinity is at the center of the debate and discussion of a couple of topics of interest to me. It is an area of disagreement between egalitarians and complementarians. It is also the source of the controversy and claims of heresy surrounding the book, The Shack.

Admittedly I stand on the side of an egalitarian relationship among the trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are our example of unity in relationships. They model perfect mutual submission and deference to one another.

As Papa said in The Shack, “Hierarchy would make no sense among us.”

In regard to the portrayal of the trinity in the book, Wayne Jacobsen said this:

One of the concerns expressed about The Shack is that it presents the Trinity outside of a hierarchy. To look at the Trinity as a relationship without the need for command and control is one of the intriguing parts of this story. If they walk in complete unity, why would a hierarchy be needed? While in the flesh Jesus did walk in obedience to the Father as our example, elsewhere Scripture speaks of their complete unity, love and glory in relating to each other.

So many of the accusations of heresy that are thrown around - scary sounding words like modalism, arianism, monarchianism, and tritheism - are all rooted in misunderstanding and differences of opinion about the trinity.

The orthodox idea of the Trinity, as established in the early councils and creeds during the fourth century, is that God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are simultaneously three distinct beings, and all the same being, none subserviant to another, all three with complete equality and a single will.

Until recently subordinationism was also considered a heresy of the trinity. It is only within the last few decades that the idea of hierarchy within the trinity has been promoted by complementarians within evangelical circles. Their teaching “equal in being, unequal in role” states that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father.

I attempted to explain my theology of the trinity on the earlier post about Driscoll’s Doctrine Versus The Shack:

Most of my understanding of the trinity is from John 14-17. The 3 are too distinct to not be acknowledged in being, yet too interrelated and united to be completely dissected.

The Spirit is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Jesus is the Son, yet He is the being of God in flesh. God is the Father, yet he chooses to reveal Himself in Flesh and in Spirit. It is all beyond my understanding, yet a real part of fully knowing God through my relationship with Him.

I am united with the Father and Jesus through the Spirit living in me, revealing to me the Father’s love and His will. By the Spirit, I am in Christ and He is in me, and usually, I don’t try to separate it all out.

It doesn’t seem too far off from the position of Athanasius. Maybe I’m not a heretic.

Athanasius declared that it was acceptable to refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as “one substance” as long as this was not understood to mean an obliteration of distinction between the three persons, and it was acceptable to speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as “three substances” as long as this was not understood to separate the three as three individual gods.

It is really interesting to me that conservative christians have taken the more unorthodox position on this particular issue.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

I love conversation. Whether it is over coffee, wine, dinner, pizza, beer, e-mail, or blog comments, I love conversation. I am not usually the biggest talker in the group, although I do contribute. I just really like listening to the thoughts and ideas of other people.

Since I started the blog, I have always enjoyed the interaction in the comment section. I believe that every comment is worthy of a response. It surprised me how much I have learned in the process of articulating responses to the many comments over the years.

You may have noticed the new comment disclaimer in the sidebar. It is with a sense of loss that I make this change. It is hard for me to imagine reading a comment and not responding to it or responding to some comments and not to others.

But the reality is that I simply can no longer do that. Due to personal circumstances, my blogging time must fit in a smaller window. That leaves time for some writing and some reading and less time for commenting.

I may be biased, but I believe that over the years, some of the best conversations have happened here. It is because of you, the wise and interesting people who take the time to share your thoughts. Your input is what makes the blog interesting to me.

As much as I value the conversation, my voice will be a smaller part of it. Of course you are still free to converse with and respond to one another. I honestly hope, perhaps unfairly, that many of you will continue to share your thoughts here.

Please know that as my response to comments becomes more random, I still value the individual comments as much as I always have. If I were able, I would prefer to respond to every single one.

Hopefully, you will agree with my friend Peggy who said, “a little bit of grace is better than no grace!”

I hope you enjoy this conversation from the Missional Journey…

Craig Van Gelder: “What is God doing in this world? This requires discernment to recognize what God is doing in our neighborhoods, schools, businesses, etc.”

Larry Chouinard: It is this aspect of a missional vision that needs more development and training to enable the church to discern God’s missional presence in a cultural context. Are we looking for explicit expressions of Kingdom values that signal the Divine presence? I don’t think Western churches are accustomed to looking for God in the every-day-ness of life.

It would seem such a way of “seeing” demands a radically different lens through which we see the world. I know how Jesus trained his disciples to see the world through a different lens, how do we do that today. “Joining God in mission” sounds incredibly compelling, but identifying with certainty “what God is doing in my neighborhood, schools, and local businesses” is not as easy as our rhetoric implies.

Jonathan Brink: “Much of our discipleship is simply Bible study which is the learning of Scriptural content. It’s not bad but it doesn’t prepare the individual to follow the Holy Spirit in the moment to where God is already working. Jesus didn’t leave us with the Bible to memorize. He left us with the Holy Spirit to follow.

I would suggest that we’re afraid to follow the Holy Spirit into mission because it might just change our world. And that could be painful. ‘-)

Demonstrated in this video posted by Fred Peatross: