"This Is A Must Read" and Other Ridiculous Ideas About Books

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When you pretty much get paid to leave a job in ministry, inevitably there comes a crisis of belief. And as you emerge on the other side, dripping with the mire of failure and loss, reality comes into focus as you look through tears and sweat. The effects are myriad. Legion. Over the past year, one of these effects has been how I look at books. Since books have been precious friends since my earliest days, it is no wonder this would be the case.  The effect has been to see how we often think about books wrongly.

For example, far too often we think of a book as “The Way” when we should be thinking of books as something to help us on the way. This thinking is betrayed when our opinion of people is lessened because they did not like a particular book we thought should help everyone in Christian growth. I mean, this bundle of bound pages is a “must read.” Right? Or when they love a book and we thought they should have thought it should have been bad for them.

But what I notice more than anything is our need to qualify our love for a book or an author by saying, “Of course, I do not agree with everything he/she says.” The “of course” is misleading because, let’s face it, we always feel the need to add it. “Of course” means “it goes without saying.” But we say it anyway because we want to make sure we do not get colored with someone’s theological errors, methodology, etc., though we want to make sure others know we benefited from the book or author’s work. A little.

Actually it’s refreshing when this does not happen. My wife and I have some friends who love and have benefited from a particular author’s books. He is a little, ehem, controversial in my world. So one night while eating dinner in their home, they told me they loved his books. I sat there and I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the, “Of course…” but it never came. I didn’t know how to respond, I probably stuttered trying to sound diplomatic. But I’m glad they did not feel the need to qualify their affection for this author and the books he had labored over.

And I’m glad because we should dispense with the whole thing. We are Christians, right? We believe everyone has a sin problem. Everyone includes authors. So, no one’s book is the book to end all books. Yes, even John Piper and Tim Keller.  No decent author feels this way. We tend to think a book is a “must read” even when the author of the book does not. The fact that we would disagree with something in a book someone wrote should…well, go without saying. Literally. (Actually, we need to admit that we even disagree with The Book, The Bible, sometimes. Not because it is wrong but because we are natural rebels.)

The real danger comes when you feel the book you love could not have error, either because of your devotion to its message or because of your devotion to the author. It’s as if the problem of sin ceased to be a factor in the writing and editing of a particular work.

Maybe we should relax. Read books and be helped by what we can. Sure we can disagree with someone and still love their book just as we disagree with a friend and love them and benefit from their life. Let books help you on your way without feeling the necessity to live as if any book is the way. Because if you don’t, you will say something ridiculous like, “This is a must read.”

Modern Art, Makoto Fujimura, and My Inability To Write My Own Name

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“Art taps into the reality of the transcendent” – Makoto Fujimura

Legibility has escaped me since a child. Writing my name in a way in which others could actually make out the letters is a skill I never developed. This lack carried over into my inability to draw anything resembling anything. So I’m certainly no artist. As a matter of fact if I think back to Mrs. Whitmire’s art classes, I made pretty poor grades. Yep, in art. Translating what I saw in my mind’s eye onto the paper was what I wanted to do. Really, I did. I loved to draw but could not do it in a way that expressed what was there. So a young life full of dreams of drawing spilling over onto sketch books was displaced. Thankfully poetry and prose did it. But I never really tried to draw again. Still don’t.

Though not sure where I picked it up, any affection for the painting and drawing others had done, was always proportional to how representational it was. So, I was more than willing to see the genius and beauty of Carvaggio and Rembrandt. However, all modern art which was the opposite of representational was out of bounds. It was weird. I couldn’t understand it. It had the feel (or lack of feeling) of inaccessibility. So I ignored it when I was not making fun of it.

All of this was the furniture of my mind when I began seeing the work of Makoto Fujimura on the internet. Having never heard of Nihonga – the ancient method of Japanese artists using particular mediums, setting it apart from Western art – I was drawn in by it’s long history and distinctive techniques. But my curiosity did not square with my convictions, firmly held about art, which was not representational. Would it be weird to say, “I had a kind of guilt about beginning to love his art?”

All this changed on a plane. A few years ago my wife and I were flying to Wichita to interview for a job. Sitting by the window, like a kid, I was wide-eyed with wonderment. And then I saw it. I saw “modern art” created by farmers. I saw a patchwork of squares, full of browns and greens of different shades. Some of these squares contained triangles and circles which certainly made sense to those who placed them there but they seemed haphazard from above. Thousands upon thousands of these squares stretched in every direction. And it was absolutely beautiful.

This God’s eye view provided me with me a glimpse of something which has often been right in front of me but I had never seen.

As a result, a kind of conversion happened, and the burden I carried, which supplied me with guilt, had fallen away and the scales fell off so that I saw beauty I had missed. There is a mundane quality to the shapes and drips of the modern paintings which we pass over all too quickly, mainly because we never stop and step back or hover over the smallest of details in our lives.

I now pore over the work of Fujimura. I am neither qualified nor desire to give a fully informed professional opinion on his work. However, I do know this, his work never ceases to move. Perhaps, it’s because I cannot get my head around it. Or maybe because it is more like poetry, expressing the inexpressible parts of life.  Then again, maybe it is because I am seeing something new and old at the same time. Fixed and Fluid. Regardless, I am thankful for his use of materials which in their glory, move me to consider the immaterial.

Is Every Christian A "Missionary?"

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“Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.” – Charles Spurgeon

The above quote by Charles Spurgeon has been making the rounds on Twitter and facebook recently. I have benefited from Spurgeon’s sermons and writings and life story for a number of years. But at the risk of killing a sacred cow here, I must say, “I disagree.”

Let me start by saying, I am fine with saying every Christian is to be salt and light where they find themselves. And I agree that our speech should be appropriately seasoned with words which betray our faith sooner or later. And contrary to popular opinion on what I have previously written, I am not against missions or evangelism.

If it is true, that every christian is a missionary, then the word really has no meaning beyond what a Christian should be doing, missions. There is no point in calling missionaries to Eritrea, “missionaries” because accountants in Meridian are doing the same thing. The word becomes nearly meaningless. And while most missionaries, who have have cast off the comforts of ours for foreign lands, would be too gracious to be bothered by the idea, it would be understandable if they were just a little put-off by such an idea. Of course, then we would criticize them for pride. “Oh you are a Nurse! Me too! I just told my sister to take some Ibuprofen.”

Nursing your children back to health does not make you a Nurse.

My guess is people love the quote because they are still mired in the paradigm of elevating misionary work as the height of spirituality. Ordinary work that is not vocational ministry is not valuable enough in the kingdom if we are not using it as a vehicle for witnessing to people. It is not dignified by itself as kingdom work, something more is needed. So we call ourselves missionaries to justify our taking up of spiritual space.

However, I think most people mean well. Their thinking about Christianity is primarily defined by evangelism and missions. This is not merely part of the Christian experience, it defines it.

All of this seems to support a paradigm of thinking foreign to the New Testament writers. In other words, the quote demands we see ourselves as missionaries. If we do not, then we are impostors. Also, we must see others the same way. “Are they living like missionaries? Well they are impostors, if not.” The problem with this is that the writers of the NT do not ever talk like this. No one is ever called out for the sin of not being a missionary or witnessing or evangelizing. No one’s salvation is ever questioned for anything of the sort.

So while I understand the need for all Christians to be salt and light I disagree with Spurgeon on this. It confuses the difference between those who go and those who stay. And also it evaluates someone’s faith based on a variable of the christian life which almost goes entirely unmentioned in the New Testament letters to the churches.

Taking Long Looks

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“People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything…” – Flannery O’Connor

Having read this quote for the first time about 12 years ago, I am surprised it is just now getting under my skin. But the very fact it has is perhaps proof of it’s truthfulness. Though I read novels, I am prone to not take long looks at most things. Like most Christians, I am quick to judge. Well, I am just quick period. I am quick to decide on the goodness or badness of something. I make rash judgments on people and books and everything. I want everything done quick. Food. Stories. Conversations. Trips. Blog posts. Downloads. Uploads. Health. Answered prayer.

So, I’m part of that elite evangelical group known as “Everyone.” We don’t take long looks at anything because it requires a reigning in of ego. The long look asks us to submit ourselves to the fact we have limited knowledge. We can guess and speculate but really we are just ignoramuses.

The BP oil spill is a good example. We were right to be concerned. But we were wrong to talk and act as if we knew the ending. We spoke about the spill as if we knew for certain what all the effects would be. And we knew, of course, they would be catastrophic. And so we handed out judgment diffused with anger like those without hope. In other words we freaked out and acted as if the Gulf Coast would be irreparably harmed. And we did all of this at the beginning of the story. But now? The oil cannot even be found. The beaches are pristine. And little microbes are “eating” up the oil that is below the surface. We should not have been so quick to think we knew the end of the story before we finished the first chapter.

Novels, of course are stories. And they should teach us something here. All the stories we love seem to have a crisis moment where we are forced to either have hope or dispense with it. And then as the story moves along, the characters change and the drama takes on a redemptive form. Hope emerges from the ashes of crisis. Our heart soars. Thankfully, we have looked long into the reaches of the final pages.

Our stories are similar. Not only have we as believers emerged from the slavery of sin and death and crossed the river on dry land into life and love with God, our Redeemer. But we continue on into a story that never ends. We move “further up and further in” as Lewis showed us in one of his novels. The story has not yet ended. We not only want others to take the long look into our lives, we naturally fall in this direction when thinking about ourselves. The cliché rings true. God isn’t finished yet. The story is not over. That is, unless you are without hope and cannot look long into the stories about and around you.

Grace For Me. Law For You.

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Though our senses begin the long process of failure as we age, there are some things we can only see as we grow older. The reckless zeal of young faith yields to a seasoned wisdom. For this very reason I am thankful I am moving further away from my youth. Maybe their are others who could be called ‘wise’ and still be young. However, you could not number me among them.

In the last year, I have seen something I hear little about and something I am sure I could not have seen as a young man. And it has cut me to the core. It could be summed up in just a few words, “Grace for me. Law for you.”

I love how the gospel of grace gives me hope and tells me I have freedom from the guilt and power of sin. I love its comfort. I love how it changes me. I love to simply think about it. And when I sin, I love going to the gospel to be reminded of the forgiveness I have in Christ. But I must confess I love to exact obedience to the law in the lives of others.

My own life is coddled in the bosom of graciousness. For there, nurturing affection can be found. But for everyone else I have traded in the sword of the Spirit preferring the the cleaver of the killing floor. Self-righteous insecurity is the order of the day. My own sins are covered. I want other’s to be revealed and seen for all their horror. I want to be outraged by them and just as well as misery, my outrage needs to draw others in.

There are no excuses for this. But it is the very air we breathe in the land of evangelicals. Actually, no one, regardless of religious orientation, is immune. But my world is populated by a majority of those who define themselves by the ‘evangel.’ The gospel. Good News. And we love it for ourselves but we have the hardest time in doling it out to everyone else. We want our relationships down here and our relationship with God characterized by grace and mercy. But we cannot find it in our heart to be merciful to people and we sure as heck think their desire for grace and mercy is presumptuous.  It’s like some kind of sick spiritual sadism that groans for grace for ourselves and then wants to lower the weight of the law upon others. We crave the velvet touch of grace for our own battered lives but instinctively we want to hammer the struggling lives around us with law.

And I live in this reality. I reside here. And have for some time. The mantle has accrued the dust of years living this way. The furniture has permanently marred the carpet from a lack of movement form this position. I have maneuvered through this space without light for decades. So I do not want to simply wield the very weapon I am just now recognizing and beat anyone and everyone over the head with it. I have seen too much of this life before God to now come down on others with a lesson I have only recently learned.

But it is a lesson we must learn. We are commanded as believers to love one another as we have been loved by Christ: grace, mercy, kindness, love, patience…all these must needs be a part of how we deal with others. These define how we have been dealt with. So we must enjoy the freedom of the grace of God and at the same time long to extend grace to each other and bring the grace of the gospel to bear in the lives of others.

The God of the Mundane

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(This post in it’s original form is here . It has grown a little.)


Perhaps I am missing something. It is possible.

Most of life seems to be pretty ordinary, mundane even. Mundane tasks liter our days and swallow our hours. We open our eyes, close them again, rub our faces and look in the mirror. Shower. We then shave our faces or legs. We all dress every morning, undress every evening. And throughout the day, regardless of sun shining or rain drenching, we must do mundane things over and over. Usually without thought we take on these tasks.

And I have not even mentioned the decisions, moral and practical coming our way in every lane we drive in and cubicle in which we answer the phone. None are earth shattering. Telling the truth here, a kind word there and on any given day not losing your patience with spouse, children, boss, teacher, and neighbor gets no press. No one will notice the steadiness – the victory over the rebellion we all know lies within. More than likely after not losing your temper, you will look out the window of your kitchen/cubicle/office/drive-through teller window and long for something beyond the mundane.

It is hard to imagine you are being spiritual in the midst of all this mundane stuff life throws your way. How do you feel spiritual when you are scrubbing grape juice out of your 6 year-old son’s white shirt? My guess is you prayed God would give you super-human mom strength so you would not have to return to target to replace the only unstained shirt he has.

Brewing coffee and writing legal briefs and making change are what you get paid for but it feels terribly unspectacular and never spiritual. In fact, it feels small, mundane and far afield from the radical lives of the missionary biographies you started to read.

The church may not be helping.

It appears the current religious climate is one of faithfulness and spirituality measured by the eventful and the big – the bombastic. If the waves are not huge and the shifts are not seismic then we assume a kind of carnality. We have redefined radical to the point where the only radical people in the church are those who have sold everything and gone…well, anywhere. But for everyone who does not sell everything, you know, those who shop at Target, go to the beach for vacation and grab some sushi (or Cracker Barrel) weekly – is there a spirituality for them that can be called “radical?” What of homemakers and tellers, clerks and customer service representatives, doctors and lawyers – is there a spirituality for them in the midst of just living a mundane life? Is there a God for them?

We know there is a God for those who are missionaries, pastors and ministry leader; they are living lives of obvious spiritual and eternal consequence. But what about everybody else? What about those who are not pastors and do not want to be?

Am I alone in worrying there is no God for the mundane? You know for those who, in the name of Jesus, are simply faithful spouses, honest in business, love their children well and enjoy the world they live in while waiting for the next – is there a God for them?

I think we have gone awry somewhere along the way. It is no longer not enough for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church, he must now agonize over whether to sell everything to go overseas as a missionary. We think someone who does not want to do ministry is unspiritual. Sure, not everyone can be a vocational missionary. But according to the popular wisdom we should all want to. The only acceptable excuse is ability. Lets face it, this sounds really good and spiritual. But it’s not. It is the very opposite.

It is the very opposite because it says to those are not missionaries and pastors, “If you had the ability, you would be doing something really spiritual, like be a pastor or missionary.” The implication is of course, you are not spiritual and not doing something spiritual…unless you are supporting those people and listening to those people.

In fact, in many ways it is really hard to stay where you are. It is hard because no one celebrates the day-in and day-out faithfulness that goes unseen by the wider world by those who toil in obscurity. No one puts pictures of a mom in Tacoma on their refrigerator so they can pray for her – unless she is in ministry. It is hard because life is not easy anywhere, there is no idyllic paradise in America where sin is not pervasive and the devil is not crouching outside of custom-made doors. And it is probably hard for a few because of the guilt heaped up on them who stay and are made to think they are unspiritual/carnal/unfaithful for doing so.

Right now, someone is questioning whether I care about missions/ministry/etc. at all. You see, that is the problem. We have elevated what is seen as being spiritual and what is radical to the point where all other activity (or seeming lack of activity) leads people to think one may not care. That may be damnable. We must assume there are untold numbers of men and women spreading the gospel of grace quietly throughout their community and making it possible financially for others to go without making a big deal about it and telling everyone on facebook they are doing it.

Part of the problem may be we have made Paul our only hero and not the nameless recipients of his letters. Who would want to be like one of the unknowns when you can be like Paul? What pastor would want to be simply one of Timothy’s appointed elders, never known and never mentioned? What man would want to be simply a day laborer, who has believed the gospel and against the trends of the day treats his wife and children with dignity and affection, dealing honestly with his neighbors? What woman would want to be a nameless mother who at the risk of ridicule and inconvenience, huddles with other brothers and sisters in The Way and listens to a nameless teacher about Jesus? It is all so mundane.

It is almost like a new legalism is emerging. “Quit your job. Do something crazy. Pick up and move. If you do not or are not thinking about doing it then you are suspiciously lacking in the necessary requirements of what we deem ‘spiritual.’

The rock-star preacher thing isn’t helping either. Life seems so mundane after watching them, reading about them and then listening to them. Changing diapers and paying bills on time and being generous and holding the hand of your spouse and caring about your aging parents and having deep friendships and being committed to the church and crying with those who hurt – well, its just not crazy enough. It is so absolutely mundane. And I fear that for most, they do not worship a God who can be glorified in the mundane.

They worship a God who acknowledges only those lives described as crazy, radical, extreme and extraordinary. So not only is there no God for the mundane parts of their lives but there is no God for ninety-percent of their life. He works in the great deeds of great lives alone.  No wonder we try to buy his affection with our acts of sacrifice and the forfeiture of our dreams. Or just give up on him altogether.

Is there a God of the mundane? Is there a God who can give meaning to the mundane duties of moms, the mundane tasks of those who clock in and clock out? Is there a God in heaven giving meaning to the mundane lives most everyone leads?

I think there is.

Mundane Kindness

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Whoever gives one of the these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is my disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. – Matt. 10:42

When you study in the library you are exposed to some interesting people. Unless someone gets there first, I sit in the same chair which happens to be situated in an area frequented by women. The Christian fiction phenomenon of Amish romance is alive and well, I tell you, and those seeking it out have worn out the carpet in front of me. There is pretty much always a soccer mom standing a few feet from me, trying to decide which series of rebellious Amish-teenage-pregnant-girls she will run through in the next 24 hours. Usually, I am pretty much ignored unless someone I know happens upon my little corner.

However, about 2 weeks ago now, I cannot remember exactly when, something memorable happened…memorable because it was different. It was the kind of thing, if you told me it would be memorable, I would wonder what you were getting at.
A lady smiled at me. And it was not the smile that says, “we have looked at each other and I am acknowledging this fact.” You know, that smile which is really no smile…where you pull in your lips and nod your head. There was nothing particularly sly about her smile. It contained no eros. And there was no reserve behind it. It lacked any pretension and seemed generous. And though I cannot understand why it was given, after thinking about this moment, kindness seems to be the only explanation I can come up with.
It was just a moment of kindness.
The reader, especially of the Southern sort, may be thinking, “Why is this such a big deal?” Let me begin by pointing out, being smiled at, by strangers, is not unique in the South. I live in Alabama. We are famous for this kind of thing. We smile at strangers speeding past at 70 miles per hour. Maybe it is not a big deal. But it didn’t have the ‘feel’ of social convention.
* * *
I had no need for the smile. My week was going great. My wife was and is full of smiles for me. We laugh and smile with each other and our children throughout the day. There is no shortage of kindness expressed through smiles in our home. And the same is true among extended family. And friends. And when gathered with our church in worship, over a meal or for the purpose of prayer, smiles bound. So it is not as if I was sulking in my chair, laboring away in gloom and was refreshed by a moment of kindness, which was nothing more than mundane.
But let’s suppose I am someone else. Suppose I am someone else, sitting here when the smile leaps out of the life of kindness and lands on me. I have lost my job and I am laboring to scale the smooth, hard face of unemployment while feeding, clothing and sheltering a family. The library has free internet so I can search for a job online. I am a day removed from getting the news I have cancer. Or I have just found out my child has leukemia. A parent has passed away. A friend has lied to me. I am alone. I have no one. Wandering this world, my interaction with others is limited to the goods and services I purchase.
If I were any of the above people, such a smile might be a flower in the desert. Or an oasis. Maybe we could call it “even a cup of cold water” for those thirsty for some kind, any kind of kindness. Any kindness at all will do. The significance of a cup of cold water will be hard to grasp for those who have never been thirsty. If you are in an air-conditioned building full of water fountains and water coolers, a cold cup of water will mean very little. Certainly appreciated when given but forgettable. It will seem ordinary, mundane even. The same goes for smiles.
* * *
Deep down, we do not really think this kind of kindness is important. As far as we are concerned, it will get no press before God or men. It’s the big stuff which looks excellent on spiritual resumés and it’s these we use to determine the authenticity of the faith of God’s people. The smaller acts of kindness? They not only do not show up but their absence is justified by the former. “I know he is a jackass and hard on the waitstaff at restaurants but he gives a lot to missions!” “Oh, well then.” Neither should negate the other. The small acts of everyday nor the noteworthy should make the other obsolete. Both are needed, sure. But one is mundane and therefore forgone. And forgotten. We forget the need. We forget the power. And we forget the words of Christ, who would commend the mundane kindness of a cup of cold water.
I imagine, most cannot see the significant moments of kindness because their lives are so full of the like. The very preponderance of it all crowds out any meaning therein. So we naturally see kindness in the newsworthy acts of philanthropy we either want to receive or be noted for. After all, no one notices the smile…it disappears in a wisp. Poof! It is gone. The cold water is no sooner enjoyed than forgotten in the desire for another. So we forgo these kinds of things altogether. They lack significance in a world we are always being told we can change. Kindness has no cataclysmic effect on the forces of evil in the name of justice. So we leave it off on our way to end injustice. In other words, we want to end war, hunger and poverty in our lifetime. But we do not posses the will to let someone merge in front of us in traffic. And do so with a smile.
* * *
In “a dry and weary land” a cup of cold water is the picture of kindness. Though small, the refreshment is needed, appreciated and not easily forgotten. This is hard because we are prone to define kindness by the largest possible measure. The plumb-line for what is kind is far removed from the stuff of smiles and cups of cold water. It exists in the form of checks and gifts, voluminous and weighty. And all the while, as we plan on laudable acts of kindness, there are moments of opportunity. Perhaps only a smile is possible. A holding of the door. An offer of assistance. That cup of cold water. All mundane, but every single one an opportunity for kindness to break in on a life just as the rays of the sun break in on a morning.
This is part of a series called “The God of the Mundane”

Should I Wish Flannery O’Connor Was Protestant?

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This is a tough question. For I cannot imagine she would have written what she has and done so with such effect, if she were. Her being Catholic seems to be the place she writes from as much as her being Southern. And yet there is this voice in myself which despises so much dogma of the Catholic church, a tension is there.

I actually do not think she would have written what she did if she had been Protestant in the South. I assume she would have been tempted and told to write something far more devotional, saccharine and sentimental. And here is the irony, she wrote about the Grace and Redemption we have in Christ better than any Protestant fiction writer. Being Catholic made her fiction what it is – Genius. So here is the irony I am stuck with; she, as a Catholic got at the truth better than she would have, if she had been a Protestant. And she got it “out there” more than 99% of Protestant writers.
This is no reason to leave and join the Catholic church. But it certainly should cause us to stop and ask, “What was she believing about God and his creation and Christ’s work of redemption that made such a wonderful body of work possible? And are we believing it? Do we need to? Are we missing out on something”
There are some who will think this is a ridiculous question. “Of course you should want her to be Protestant, her soul is what matters the most and as a Catholic, her soul was at risk.” I assume these folks are the same ones who would have told her to write something different. I prefer to wrestle with this question a little more, all the while, thankful for her gifts.

Novels are for Pastors

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My parents did not always buy me the toys I wanted. Dad was a pastor and we never had tons of money, though I never really knew it. But they did buy me books. I went through a period where I was going through Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators books like most kids go through video games. I have this one memory of my parents driving me around to various little local bookstores to find one I had not read. This is a precious memory to me because we were on the way to their friend's house and I wanted...needed something to do while the adults talked. I had no siblings near my age. Books like these were my friends. I would pore over them again and again and again. The stories still stand dust-covered in the shadows of days long gone.

Things have not changed much. I still read novels; many of them over and over, year after year. I have added a memoir or two and I always read stories new to me. These stories have become familiar friends, very familiar, for many have been read more than a dozen times. The stories are never knew but it does not matter, I read them anyway, expecting something new. Never disappointed, though the story never changes, I see glimmers unfamiliar, each time.
But there was a time I had an uneasy relationship with novels. I did not stop reading them, but I started feeling guilty about it. Not the kind of guilt which leaves you up at night. But the kind of guilt which keeps you from talking about what you are reading with others. We pastors (and really spiritual people) are supposed to read “spiritual books” you know…not fiction.
Like I said, the relationship was ‘uneasy.’ Mainly because I was listening to some voices which made me think, as a pastor, I had neither the time nor the freedom to enjoy fiction on a regular basis. The responsibility was too great. The urgency was too real. Hell is burning. And you want to read Dumas? But then I would enjoy the warm comfort of a paragraph written by Austen or O’Connor’s ragged Southern wit. The joy of Dillard’s The Maytrees is without equal. And I am always in the mood for a murder of Agatha Christie’s making. Needless to say, the guilt lost out to the beauty and the profound weight of all I had learned about life and writing from so much fiction. Stories have been good to me since my earliest days, where memories run slow and shallow.
But I want to go out on a limb and suggest novels are ‘good.’ They are not just OK. They are good and not just as sermon illustration fodder. They are stories. And stories I assume are good things. We know this because the Bible is a story. Though it has instructions, it is not an instruction book. It is not a “game plan” for your life. It is not a mere roadmap. It is nothing if not a story, the story of what God is doing. Has done. Will do.
And Jesus told stories. Yes, they are parables. But they are wonderful stories nonetheless – full of life and wonder and excitement and reality and fiction and tears and blood and heaven and hell and violence and passion and sin and beauty. All are works of fiction meant to arrest the listener and now the reader.
The Gospel is a story. And we are justified by faith in this story. We have lost sight of the fact that the facts and truths we espouse as believers are of the kind which belong to a story. It isn’t fiction, mind you. But is has more in common with fiction than a religion of lists and propositions alone.
And every life is a story. The rich and poor alike are stories lived, whether told or untold. And if told would be worthy reads. James Joyce taught us this. No one is an abstraction. Our social security numbers and long lines at airports try to convince us differently. But we, ourselves are the stuff of epic tales…every moment worthy of a memoir.
Novels, though fiction, when they ring true, are full of truth. The kind of truth which makes us sit up in bed, underline sentences and read them to your spouse out loud. The label ‘fiction’ only plays at the edges of what it often is.
All of the above begins to give us a glimpse into the help novels and stories can afford pastors (and those who are more spiritual than everyone else). But also, novels can help pastors in the way they write and teach. Most theology books are not distinguished because of how well they are written. No, they are set apart from books on matters doctrinal because of their ability to impart the themes they have set out to communicate. Novels are often set apart (not always) because they have been written well. The novels usually distinguished are those which have the feel of craft.
We, pastors as a vocational set, could use a little instruction in craft. We could use some informal training in how to craft sentences worth remembering and the subtle wielding of words. Our ability to communicate the truths we love and are convinced of, can…will be strengthened by reading fictional stories.
We are not mere information producers for consumers of religious goods and services. We are story-tellers. We tell our story. We tell the old, old story – the story which gives all other stories depth and significance. We are not solely educators instructing students from whom we expect regurgitation of information. We are in the line of those who crafted those 4 marvelous edifices of Gospel. No one who has looked into the well of the original languages can walk away without seeing they did not just write out information they remembered. They crafted. Our sermons, letters, emails, lectures and for God’s sake, our blog posts could stand some more craft in them.
This is not to say all fiction is created equal. But if I have any ability to write, I owe much to Jane Austen, Flannery O’Connor and C.S. Lewis. If I can turn a phrase at all I credit Tolkein and Annie Dillard. Certainly some fiction may be not so helpful as others. But this is no reason to not pick up a novel and read some fiction.
Someone will read this and suggest I am telling pastors they should put down their theology texts and pick up Twilight. Let me say with a resounding voice, “Maybe.” Certainly I am saying, we should see novelists and storytellers as gifts from God, who can add much to our ministry. At the least I am pleading for a desire to create a pastoral environment where works of fiction are not relegated to the sidelines of afterthought and leftover pieces of time but are seen as fresh help as we must craft messages of hope and grace.

The Gospel of Something Else Entirely

matt b redmond3 Comments

It’s early in the week and all you can do is wait for the weekend to get here. Well, it’s not all you can do. You can daydream and plan and tell others about the awesome plans you have made. You can trudge through the mundane job before you, with the hope of something better to come; whether it be the lake, the beach, a date or a night out with friends. This is how we live our weeks. Ease of labor is made possible by the promise of a break from it. Monday through Friday we walk through the valley of the shadow of work and school. When Friday comes, we enjoy the good news of the clock, world without end. Till then, we manage by enjoying happy hours, long lunches and a good film but we are wanting something else entirely different from the work week.

And we most likely have a spirituality in the same vein. We eagerly await doing spiritual things and being involved with spiritual enterprises. We look to the future. We look away to something outside of what we are doing. Regardless of where we are and what we happen to be doing, we must wait for something else or be somewhere else to have a spiritually significant moment. It is here, we are believing the gospel of something else entirely.
There is one understandable reason for this. The gospel is in fact something else entirely. It is entirely outside of our opinions, for the good news of the Kingdom is out there regardless of our belief in it. Also, the gospel is the message of God working and rescuing and changing us because we cannot do it ourselves.
But there is also a problem here. The “gospel of something else entirely” steals the significance of now and here. Now gives way to later. Here loses out to there. The present moment and the place where that moment passed are stamped with insignificance. The significance of here and now are relegated to the credit of those who only saw them previously as later and there.
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I buy the bread for communion. And I buy it from a big box store on my way to where our church meets on Sunday Mornings. It is easy for me to focus on the fact I am getting bread for communion which will take place a few hours later than when I buy it. What is not easy for me to focus on, are the moments strung together as I am buying the loaf of bread. How do I respond to and think about the sleepy “greeter” who barely acknowledges my existence as I enter the store. Am I thankful for the cool air of the store. Do I stand in wonder at all the food before me? Do I long for everyone to get the heck out of my way so I can get there? There. There is where the importance lies.
This is no call for navel-gazing guilt. What I am after is a life of moment-by-moment significance. I’m after good news of the Mark 1:15 sort. The Kingdom of God is at hand. I am part of this kingdom. I am not waiting to be part of it when I die. I am not more a part of it when I am in church listening to a sermon or eating this bread. When I buy the bread – any bread – I am involved in transactions which are Kingdom transactions.
This changes everything. No longer is the gospel the promise of something else entirely. It is now the message of now. Now you are redeemed. Now you are living as a member of the Kingdom. You are disciplining your child, taking a bath, paying bills and cutting grass as a member of the Kingdom of God and of his Christ. And the reason this changes everything is because now everything is now part of this life in the Kingdom.
Every mundane moment sitting uncomfortably between those of ecstasy, spiritual or otherwise is now worthy of attention. It is no longer necessary to live on the fumes of the spiritual high that was or look forward to a future hit, we have now the fellowship of the King. Every act is now of Kingdom consequence.
Sure, there will be times when “getting this” will be like finding needles in haystacks or pulling teeth. But this is when I think the message of the gospel for now – this moment – is singularly good news. It does not only offer promises of the future but holds out promise for now, even now when you cannot see the goodness of the news, it is still present. “You are still loved by the King.”
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If it is true the Kingdom is at hand then we had better get rid of the “gospel of something else entirely.” The gospel of “going to heaven and not hell” and the “gospel of feeling great while listening to sermons and worship songs” is woefully inadequate.
I agree, it is great news, we, followers of Jesus are not going to hell and instead are promised a glorious eternal existence. And I’ve nothing against enjoying sermons and worship songs…well some worship songs. But one is a gospel dealing with only later and the other leaves me in the position of experiencing the indwelling presence of my God at Church or if I have my headphones handy. What about now? While I am eating with my family? Sitting in the library? Mopping the floor? Doing homework? Shopping for a new belt?
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When people would walk away from the Christian faith, I used to find it odd. And it is still compelling and lovely enough for me to be astonished. However, now I do wonder. I wonder why they would stay if the faith they are adhering to is all about something else entirely. Oh, your faith can be about now, if you give your life to Jesus fully and go oversees to tell others about him. Or go into full-time ministry as a pastor. But, if you’re a banker or doctor or a barista, well, you only get Sundays (maybe Wednesday nights), the drive home if you listen to Christian music and the annual missions trip. But there is nothing for the bulk of our lives. They are unspiritual, which must mean they are devoid of the Spirit of Christ, our King…our Savior. Our friend. What happened to all the good news? A life of millions of millions of moments that are of no consequence is terrible news.
I advise no one to walk away. But what I do advise is a rejection of the gospel of something else entirely – the gospel which has nothing to do with all the times and places which are not typically called ‘spiritual.’ I enthusiastically advise a rejection of any gospel which demeans the day-in and day-out labors of homemakers, who must scrape up last night’s mac-n-cheese off the floor, courtesy of the resident toddler, by suggesting such a thing is not of eternal consequence. When in fact, they are pushing back the fall, itself.