A Martyr for Vindication

"St. Augustine prayed-'O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.' That temper of mind destroys the soul's faith in God. 'I must explain myself; I must get people to understand.' Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves."[1]

The more I interact with other people, the more I realize what a bad person I am. Do I look like a bad person? Probably not. Do I feel like a bad person? Very often.

Now let's break this down. It seems that what I find at the core of myself is the need to make sure other people know that I care about them. I don't want for a second for them to think that I have placed something else above them in their time of need, whether large or small. So then, even if my actions reflect a mostly caring heart, my heart speaks out against me to me and no one else. When you come down to it, there is a selfish motive directing the whole endeavor. I feel guilty enough (to be a catholic sometimes) or I think they might need me or I feel bound by duty. 

When did I get away from truly doings things out of love? Now I feel the urge to clean this up for anyone who might now be analyzing what I have done for them and why. And guess what? I want to clean it up again so that no one thinks I am a bad person. The cycle seems to continue ad infinitum. 

Perhaps I am making this too black and white and painting myself as one-dimensional. People's motivations are much more complicated than that. And perhaps it all evens out, and I am too busy focusing on my martyrdom for anyone to notice.

[1] Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. November 23rd.

Exhortations appeal to Emotions to Encourage us

I've been realizing a lot lately (through personal experience rather than book larnin') how profoundly my theology can affect even the "mundane" aspects of my faith.

Now despite the fact that it seems contradictory, I have come to this personal, empirical realization at one of my recurring moments of faltering faith. I am willing to argue from within the confines of a possible schema, but don't feel fully comfortable arguing as if it were a faith inspired fact. I felt this sidebar was necessary in case any of my sentence constructions seem a bit...uh...wonky.

In any case, I think it is really easy to slip into a human centered view of theology instead of a God or Christo-centric view of theology. (The irony of my writing a blog, which will in some ways draw attention to myself, on this subject is not lost on me.) The accusation that we are worshipping self more than God sounds like damnable idolatry, which no God-fearing Christian would dare attempt. But that self-centeredness is an insidious little bugger. It crops up when we think we are doing the good things God intends us to do.

I've been reading Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest and the entry for October 26th taken from John 20: 21 really struck me. "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." The context of this verse is the resurrected Christ appearing to his disciples, and Chambers takes this opportunity to discuss what it means to be a missionary. Even more so, he discusses what is our motivation to be missionaries.

Generally when we hear calls to be missionaries, we hear it pitched in terms of the lost who need to be saved. Exhortations appeal to our emotions to encourage us to go. We see the need of the people above all else. What Chambers focuses on, however, is God's command rather than the external need.

That sort of focus reorients me. Yes, I care about people because God does, but do I set them up above him? What I mean to say is, If God chooses to take a particular action and I am not happy about the outcome to a person or persons, have I then put people before God? It's a tricky balance.

Further, why should we need additional justification other than the fact that God commands it? By emphasizing the needs of the people, do we elevate them over God? Or is this some badly developed argument based on arbitrary semantics? And does it make it easier to focus on the the steps that God has issued like a military CO, rather than to think about "collateral damage?

Of Stewardship and Begging

Awhile ago, I was talking to a woman at work about a sermon series her pastor was doing about stewardship. In the midst of railing against "tree-hugging liberals" in certain *ahem* circles, man's dominion over the earth is stressed, but the responsibility to be a good steward is left by the wayside.

Of course this is not only applicable to things of an environmental nature (do not pardon the pun). There are many things with which God blesses us and of which we ought to make good use. The parable of the talents comes to mind, and of course there are some interpretations where the English pun comes in handy (Matthew 25:14-28). The servants who invested the funds of the master were rewarded, while the servant who hid his talent was not.

Do we use the money over which we are given stewardship appropriately or do we waste it? In like manner, do we use the skills we have been given to further God's kingdom or do we use them to our benefit or let them atrophy? I dare say there are many things God has given me and let me do with them what I think I please. I am certain that I do not use all my abilities to the best of my ability, and yet he still gave them to me. I imagine that he is not always happy with what I do with them, but he has not taken them away.

Next comes the twist. How many times have we, that is to say I, seen someone begging for money on the side of the road and been hesitant to give him or her cash because of what it might be used for? What if they use it for beer? What if they use it for drugs? This could go on and on to the extremes of "what if they use it for junk food. That is certainly not the best use of my money."

Granted, God is God, and omniscience is an applicable trait to reference now. He knows what we will do with what we are given before he gives it to us. And maybe we should not always give money to anyone who asks for it. Maybe we should help in other ways.

But what I am convicted about is my inclination to judge someone over their use of my resources when I should probably be judged over my use of God's resources.

What's a girl to do?

I Corinthians 11...

Are you familiar with it? If you are a woman who has read much of the New Testament, you likely are. In fact, it may cause you some aggravation. Verses 1-16 discuss "Propriety in Worship" as the NIV heading renders it. Paul begins by praising the Corinthians for holding on to the teachings that he has passed to them, but then he begins to discuss another matter.

Now, I have a bit of a feminist streak running through me, and a lot of that is probably due to the way I grew up. In my household, the mother was by default the spiritual leader because the father was neither a Christian nor a good example of a husband and father. Because of this, any distinctions of leadership based solely on sex or gender grate me. "What? Even if I am right and possibly more spiritual, because I am a woman I have to submit to what a man says instead? Look at Sarah who went along with some of Abraham's outrageous lies. Was she correct in going along with a claim of being his sister, even though that got them in scrapes and displayed Abraham's lack of faith?"

That's likely a discussion for another time. However, I did catch something as I was reading today that made me feel a bit better. I've been trying to combine two things lately: Bible study and practicing Spanish. I like to think that focusing on the interpretation from Spanish helps me to really think about what is being said, and I think that's why I noticed this little nuance.

In any case, Paul compares a few levels of submission in verse three. I'll spare you the Spanish and quote the NIV in English:

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and that the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."

See, I don't like this head of the woman business, but that could be because I am too prideful. I'm still working that one out. But what intrigues me is that the head of Christ is God, because Christ is God. Now I am not going to say necessarily that woman=man. However, we do know that God the Father begot God the Son, that is Christ. C. S. Lewis discusses this at length and impresses on his readers that one can only beget the same types as oneself. Had the Father created the Son, the Son would have been a different substance. Since he was begotten, however, he is the same substance.

Woman was indeed begotten of man. We learn this in the Garden of Eden, as Eve was "begotten" by Adam from his own side. I place begotten in quotations here only since God actually initiated it. So woman is the same substance of man, much as Christ is the same substance of God. But really what I see is that Christ can be under the headship of God, so maybe I can be under the headship of man. That still does not come out easily. In fact I was wincing as I typed it.

I really have no conclusion, other than to say that this idea is a struggle for me, and that is without touching the idea of shorn hair and head coverings that follows in the next verses!

Jesus and the Law of Noncontradiction

I've been studying John Duns Scotus for class recently, and I am not ashamed to admit that I could really use a Cliff's Notes version. In fact when I get frustrated enough I call him, as one of my friends has taken to doing, John Duns Scrotum. Besides the fact that he is fairly dense, I just don't have the background in Aristotelian philosophy to be able to fully assimilate it. I have a little, and that little bit is contained in the ideas of "being" and "essence." Now for all those (all three people that might read this, that is) that may be nodding off, my introductory foray into nerddom is mostly done. I say all that to pose a question about our humanity.

Is the state of struggle one of the core essences of humanity?

Now I could set this up in the manner of the medieval philosophers with point/counterpoint ad infinitum, but since I barely understand it when other people do it, I will not attempt it here. Also, I am lazy. I am taking it as self-evident that the state of struggle is a human element, rather than a divine element. If others have evidence to the contrary, I am certainly teachable.

Since I've already answered my own question, "What is my point?" you may ask. We see many struggles as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, one of which I addressed in a previous blog. (I should note here that I am ruthlessly mining my pastor's excellent sermon this past week for ideas). It's always been hard for me to understand how Jesus could have struggled that much with his Father's will. Certainly he knew what awaited him, but he also knew it would be temporary. He had the benefit of knowing the purpose and outcome of his struggle at the time of his struggle, unlike Job.

So it hit me while I was sitting in church. If he were truly one with God, how could he have considered deviating from the plan? Perhaps his Father was hesitant as well, but I think it is something else. Perhaps the struggle was a uniquely human element or characteristic of the God-man with a purpose. We know Jesus was without sin, so by default we know that his struggle was not sin. Not only that, we also know that there are things that are not sin that are also not ideal. I'm pretty confident of the fact that we would not have seen Christ doing something without purpose or "unideal."

So my conclusion, besides the fact that one being with two simultaneous natures would make Aristotle spin in his grave? That it's ok if we struggle. It's not ok to be rebellious, but it is ok to struggle with the hard things that we must face. I dare say it is Christ-like.

The Silver Chair of Apathy

Humans tend toward apathy. Bodies in motion constantly seek rest. Christ, however, directly admonished Peter to “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh, the human aspect is weak.  [i]

 

There are echoes of this type of statement throughout the New Testament. Peter himself reiterates it when he writes to believers telling them to be vigilant, for the devil roams around like a roaring lion looking for its next object of prey.[ii] It seems that Peter has taken this particular statement of Jesus to heart, as well as his statement in Luke 22:31 warning Peter that the devil wanted to sift him like wheat.

Clearly there is danger in relinquishing our guard, in losing sight of our goal in favor of sleep and rest. My pastor this morning made an interesting observation. If the apostles had a sense of how weak they truly were, would they have ever been off their guard? Had they known what would happen in a matter of hours as they snoozed in Gethsemane, would they have even been able to sleep?

You don’t hear it very often, at least I don’t, but there is a definite impetus in Scripture for believers to be self-reflective. Often this is in the context of searching our own hearts, looking for huge 2 X 4s in our eyes before pointing out the speck of dust that may be in the eyes of one of our Christian siblings.
[iii]

However we also see it in James, one of my very favorite books. When we observe out heart, as if in a mirror, we are to remember what we see, not immediately forgetting what manner of person we are. [iv] All the while we must realize that, as it states in I John 1:8, if we say we have no sin, we only deceive ourselves.

With that being said, why does it take so much for us to stay awake? It is taken for granted (slight pun intended) for Christians to be on fire one moment and gradually lose steam, not unlike the Israelites in the Old Testament. C.S. Lewis provides an analogy in The Silver Chair that has long resonated with me. Eustace and Jill are on their journey with the clear and important purpose of reaching Prince Rilian. Tired and hungry, the two spot some welcoming home where they can find respite. They have soon completely forgotten their purpose and have been consumed entirely by their hopes of a new-found comfort. However, they learn that this comfort is false and that they are in even more danger of being destroyed than had they continued on their way.

Here we have here a false sense of security, an idea which John Piper in Don’t Waste Your Life expands upon greatly. Even when we think we are safe from danger, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, we are truly not. A long-standing pattern of the status quo lulls us into a deep apathy, creating a breeding ground for all sort of sin. These incidents cannot always be averted, but when the trials come you can be better prepared for them.

So what is it in our nature that which allows us to so easily forget how weak we are? Humans must be constantly reminded, shocked out of apathy, to be lit on fire once again. After the adrenaline rush, do we burn out? Is the rest necessary because if we were to constantly function at that level we might fall over dead? Or perhaps, we need to develop a sort of ninja-like sentinel ability to keep our eyes open, even as we rest.

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[i] Mark 13:47

[ii] I Peter 5:8

[iii] Luke 6:42

[iv] James 1:23-24