Telos: Perfection, Completion and Community or "Why we'll never be perfect..."

So one of the worst stereotypes of and in Christianity is that of the "perfect" Christian. The person who has it all together. They've got the perfectly balanced work, spiritual and personal life. They don't have any struggles or flaws or secrets. They've got it all worked out. Obviously to be a Christian you have to be perfect.

Well, if you've ever been in a Church you probably had this image dispelled fairly quickly. And yet the ghost of this expectation continues to haunt us. The Spirit of Holy Perfection continues to worry our minds long after its possibility is disproved. So why do we struggle so hard to attain a perfection that we can never achieve?

Well, first and foremost, we still bandy about the "P word" (as my college band director used to call it) quite a bit in Church language. We are made perfect. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And when its not a quote there is the ever-present Church facade of perfection. In Church no one has real issues, no one is truly broken, we attend Church cause we like the music and think Jesus was cool not because we're people in need of a savior. Whether we say it or not most of us have donned this visage at one point or another in our Churchy lives.

But there seem to be a lot of problems with the idea of human "perfection". Lets try and think a bit critically for a moment about our theology of perfection. For example, how do we resolve the scriptural conflict between a Paul who tells us God's power is made perfect in our weakness and a Christ who tells us to be perfect? Why would the God who rejected pharisaic piety turn around and seemingly ask for the same? The scriptures seem to insist over and over that God chooses to work through the broken and lacking things to overturn the great. Why does the God of the Underdog seemingly call us to perfection? Why does the God who promises never to test us beyond our ability ask for the seemingly impossible?

Well folks the simple answer is God doesn't call us to perfection. For centuries we've been at the mercy of a minute but extremely important nuance in our English bible translations. The word in question here, our biblical "perfection", is in fact the Greek noun telos. For those of a philosophical or eschatological bent you might recognize this word from the field of teleology. You see, while bible translators have seemingly taken little effort to differentiate these uses, its very clear in its other uses that a strong possibility for the translation of telos is not perfection but rather something more akin to finishing or completion. In fact, this is the root verb in John 19 when Jesus offers his final words in the Johannine account. Not "It is perfected" as a consistent translation would lead us to suspect but rather "It is finished."

God doesn't call us to perfection. At least not in the way we understand it. Human imperfection is built in at a fundamental level. God saw a purpose in crafting a servant which was less than perfect. So if rather than perfect, God calls us to be "whole" or "complete" then what exactly does this look like and why does he do so?

Ultimately, the answer seems to lie in the sometimes beautiful, sometimes dangerous or simply dingy tapestry of human experience known as Community. God calls each of us to completion. Not some kind of universal perfection but rather the utmost expression of ourselves in Him, replete with flaws and weakness. God doesn't want us to discard our individuality. Rather, as the master craftsman He is, God has formed each of us in a unique manner for a unique purpose. It is only in our uniqueness, especially our flaws and weaknesses, in which we can be a part of the grand Community which God has called each of us to. It is only in our weakness that our need for God can truly be felt, only in our weakness that His presence is revealed to us. The God of the poor and broken will seem silent to the strong, as the noise of our own sense of achievement and importance drowns out the quiet still voice. When we can embrace our own limitations only then can we enter into relationship with God.

And yet this is only half the story. Throughout the entirety of scripture Jews and Christians alike have sought the highest level of relationship with God, pursuing ever higher and deeper levels of relationship with the Creator. And yet God does something strange to these seekers. In another dichotomy shattering contradiction God reveals to those that seek after Him that to deepen their understanding and relationship with Him they must first embrace their fellow men, in all their imperfection. Even in the garden when Man is theoretically in his original intended state God looks at Adam and already sees something missing. In the bond of Community God takes our imperfections and our strengths and binds them together in mutual support and need. While our completion as individuals retains human weakness God redeems these flaws in Community, turning our less than into more, our flaws into a new perfection and our brokenness into mosaic.

Idolizing Jesus: How We Wound Up With A White Middle-Class Republican Savior

In today's American Christianity we have a multitude of Jesuses. Jesusii? Multiple versions of Jesus. One is a Socrates-esque itinerant teacher who wandered the Middle East giving good advice, another a feel-good spiritualist prosperity guru (with well-coiffed hair) and most prominently the Right-wing icon illustrated above. These are only a handful of the iterations of Jesus that decorate the American ideological spectrum.

So how do we account for these wildly differing Jesuses? Well, for this issue we refer to the famous French sociologist Émile Durkheim. Now while we're going to agree to disagree with Mr. Durkheim on a variety of his theories there is one in particular which is particularly illuminating for our conversation. You see, one of Dr. D's emphases was in the sociological effects and, ultimately, the origins of religion. In his studies he identified a form of religion which he believed to be the most basic form from which all other religions arise. He monikered this baseline religious practice as "totemism". 

Durkheim saw totemism as a form of social religious imaging. Societies corporately created images and idols (in the sense of a religious object with definable visible form) out of their collective social experience. In a manner of speaking they projected the practices and structures of their selves and their community onto the divine. This is summed up in his famous quote "God is society, writ large." He identified humankind's natural tendency for self-worship, hidden behind a collective religious totem.

So what does all of this have to do with our plethora of Jesuses? While we might perhaps disagree with Durkheim about the ultimate origin of religion he is clearly correct in identifying the manner in which we produce particular understandings or images of Jesus. Our abundance of Jesuses are rooted in our tendency to project ourselves onto our gods. Rather then attempt to live the kind of life which God blesses and desires for us we instead try to create the kind of God who will bless the life we are already living. Jesus becomes the things we want instead of what need Him to be. This is how we arrive at Nationalistic American Jesus and Prosperity Gospel Jesus, they tell us the things we want to hear. This is even how the Third Reich's religious minds were able to produce an Anti-Semitic Jesus (a rather impressive feat of historical revisionism.)

So then how are we ever to be certain that the Christ we are worshiping is the true Christ of history? For that purpose we have two clear and interrelated tools at our disposal. The first, and most obvious, are the scriptures themselves. The Gospels as we have them today were chosen for their clarity, unity and accuracy in conveying the person and narrative of Jesus in the most faithful and transparent manner. If our Jesus cannot conform with the witness of Scripture then our Jesus has become skewed. If the principles and teachings exhibited in Jesus's life are absent, contradicted or even less than fully exhibited we are dealing with an idol rather than a Savior.

Our second tool is context. Jesus lived in a particular time and world just as we do. While there are immediate things we can learn from studying Christ in the Gospels (and let's face it that alone would be more than most of us live out) there is a rich sea of detail and clarity that can only be found in thorough investigation of the world in which Jesus lived. The most obvious example (though perhaps not as obvious as I used to imagine) is that of the Good Samaritan. Most people in Christian circles learn soon enough that Samaritans were a rather despised Semitic off-shoot of Judaism and therefore they understand the message of righteousness that confounds traditional expectation. However, when teaching this lesson to a group of youth I was once told that a Samaritan was "someone who went around doing good stuff and helping people". Obviously this sort of destroys the message the parable is intending to teach. So as we study the scriptures we must always firmly root ourselves in what it meant to live in the Roman occupied, 1st century, 2nd temple Judaic Palestinian world in which Jesus lived and walked. Similarly we must walk with our eyes open to our own context. It is only when we can understand both Jesus's world and our own that we can truly begin to see Him moving in our own day and time.

When we can bring these two tools together we can finally begin to make some kind of start at an honest search for the genuine Jesus. When we can learn to doubt the idols of our imagination and the inclinations of our own personalities we can begin to unravel the illusions we've constructed for ourselves and begin to peer through for a true glimpse of the divine.

Sheep, Shepherds and Kings: Growing in Leadership

Throughout the Scriptures there are a multitude of images of leadership. We see prophets and judges, elders, deacons and apostles. We see fathers and governors and centurions. And yet while each of these are powerful models of leadership there is one image which dominates the metaphor and language of leadership in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, the lowly shepherd.

Over and over again prophets and kings hold up the lowly shepherd as a model of true leadership. God is a shepherd, Jesus is the good shepherd and he leaves Peter with the command to "feed (shepherd) my sheep". Unfortunately though, we too often imagine leadership to be the sole prerogative of pastors, ministers and administrators. We content ourselves in the knowledge that the demands of leadership are being left in the apt hands of the professionals.

But the bible lays out a clear imperative for growth. We enter into our Christian lives as sheep. We're lead from place to place. Let's face it, we're mindless consumers. We roll in, we get fed and we go home. The leaders, lay and professional, take care of our needs and tend us when we're sick. And all of this is great. We need the help...but only for so long. As Paul, Peter and the author of Hebrews all tell us at some point we've gotta give up the spiritual milk.

At some point we must grow past our mindless need. We come to God and his Church wounded but sooner or later its time for us to take up the healing. Every spiritual sheep is called to someday become a shepherd in turn.

So what distinguishes shepherds from sheep? A sheep is a fundamentally passive creature. They instinctively congregate in herds and are easily lead from place to place by food or simply a strong presence of leadership. A shepherd, on the other hand, has a stake in leadership. Not everyone's stake will be the same but the very first moment when a baby Christian takes a step into ministry they begin the process of becoming shepherds. God has gifted each of us in a unique way and he calls us to utilize those gifts as only we can. God intends every follower to become a leader, to have a vision and enact it, be it through more traditional leadership roles or through more subtle arts like service and even through following the leadership of another. Sometimes leadership just means the difference between being lead along and choosing to follow.

Another mark of a shepherd in the making is the the gradual denial of the self. A sheep is a fundamentally self-centered creature. With a few exceptions (most notably ewes with lambs) a sheep spends most of its time taking care of its own needs. They graze for themselves and wander for themselves. When attacked sheep just panic and flee. By contrast a shepherd has to put the well-being of his flock ahead of his own, standing in the face of danger to protect his helpless charges. In fact, it is this very training which prepares the young shepherd and musician David to confront the behemoth Goliath. We begin to become shepherds when we learn to place the well-being of others ahead of our own. God calls his shepherds to stand against bears, lions and sometimes even giants. Its only a good shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for flock, who is willing to stand at the gate and keep watch even when his eyes and limbs burn with fatigue. This is the quality of leadership which Jesus embodies for us, a leadership which does not seek its own good first but rather those of its followers.

Finally, a good shepherd transcends utilitarian calculation. A sheep lives in the shallow world of cost/benefit and pleasure/pain. But Jesus tells us that a good shepherd will not rest until he has attended to each and every sheep, regardless of the feasibility. And while a lit bit of logic and rationality goes a long way in almost any endeavor in life it will ultimately fail us as guiding principles for love. Love has to be a bit irrational. Love can't worry too much about what time it is or what its going to cost. Because love that is conditional and convenient is ultimately and tragically flawed. Jesus decries these things and offers his very life as the counter-example.

The transition from sheep to shepherd is not an easy one. In the eyes of the world its not even a particularly natural one. But it is a transition we're called to make. Jesus didn't come for servants and ultimately he didn't come for sheep. Jesus is calling us past reception of ministering into partnership in his designs, from kingdom-residents to kingdom-builders. Ultimately, there comes a point when we all have to grow up and shed our wooly selfish natures, becoming the leaders we're called to be.

Becoming a Blessing

"God bless you." "God bless America." "God bless us, every one."

Every day we hear a cacophonous assault of blessings. From right-wing political pundits to well-meaning clergy and even when we sneeze. The invocation of God's blessing has become almost humdrum in its constancy, one can almost imagine a constant rain of blessings pattering across the ground as we go about our days. And yet something seems slightly strange. The manner in which we invoke God's blessing seems to have become almost too common. The classic conundrum of the conflicting sports prayer comes to mind. If a Duke fan and a UK fan each pray for their team to win in an upcoming game, does God choose sides? How would he choose? And even more why would he particularly care to bless a particular sports team with victory?

I fear that over the course of our faith's long journey from a Middle-Eastern Semitic nomad's devotion to a globe spanning institutional religion we have lost sight of how God originally envisaged blessing and his followers. Somehow we've gotten the process of blessing a bit confused. It seems like today we imagine blessing as some kind of good vibe God drops on us out of nowhere for no reason other than we asked for it. Or perhaps because we've been extra good lately, like God is the cosmic karmic Santa. This good vibe gets us what we want, better jobs, better toys, a better life for ourselves. And certainly God does seem to have rewards in mind for those who are willing to follow him but this one dimensional understanding of blessing seems to fall short of what God holds out to us.

Take Abraham for example. The story of God calling Abram contains the first explicit "blessing" in the whole collection of scripture. But God slips a few interesting things into the story:
 ¹Now ^(A)the LORD said to Abram,
         "Go forth from your country,
         And from your relatives
         And from your father's house,
         To the land which I will show you;
    ²And ^(B)I will make you a great nation,
         And ^(C)I will bless you,
         And make your name great;
         And so ^(D)you shall be a blessing;
    ³And ^(E)I will bless those who bless you,
         And the one who curses you I will curse
         ^(F)And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." (Genesis 12 NASV)

First, God's blessing is something God initiates. And notice something else here, God doesn't just rain down blessing like a lambasted celestial pinata. God's blessing is firmly intertwined with calling. God doesn't just put blessing into Abram's life, he sends out blessing ahead of Abram. God doesn't want to bless us where we are, simply affirming and validating the thing we are right now. God doesn't want to bless who we are, he wants to bless who we might become. 

Second,  God's blessing is larger than one life can contain. When we come into contact with God's gifts it turns us into something bigger than ourselves, something we can't keep to ourselves. Abraham will be blessed but more than that, or perhaps even because of that, he will, in turn, become a blessing to all of the families of the earth.

But therein is the most amazing thing. Through childless Abram God is going to bless all of the families of the earth. To his ancient Jewish context Abram is cursed by his childlessness. This is perhaps the most amazing thing that happens here, God's blessing is so powerful that even as it fills our needs it turns us into fulfillment for others. This is what Jesus is discussing with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus offers her living water to quench her thirst. He offers a gift, a blessing, to meet the needs in her life. And yet these aren't the only needs. The woman is a pariah, a social outcast, burdened by the pain of her history and the judgment of her community. And yet as she encounters Jesus his blessing on her life not only returns her to her community but in turn makes her the first missionary to her own people. Jesus turned her need for community into a blessing for the very community which rejected her. The blessing that God gave her was bigger than her need, bigger than their judgment and more powerful than pain.


God wants to call each of us into a place of blessing. Right now, in our communities, in our cities and our world there is a call waiting to be taken up. A call that resonates with the needs each of us bear. God is sending his blessing out ahead of us to call us towards what we might become in Him. A call to a blessing that is bigger than our lives.

Holy Ground: Carrying The Sacred With Us

The concept of holy ground has always been an intriguing theological concept to me. The very idea has an immediate aesthetic appeal to the mind. We instantly flash to distant locales, monasteries atop icy mountain, a tiny shrine in the midst of a great deserted forest, perhaps for those of us of the Christian inclination we might even envisage something like a grand cathedral, bedecked with stained glass and relics. Certainly temple Judaism had some kind of fascination with the concept as did/do the variety of past and present pilgrims of all faiths, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Shintoists and Hindus. There is something appealing to us about the notion that God is more powerfully present somewhere in the world.
And yet my theological brain can't help but see something strange in the whole notion. While we like the idea of holy ground and perhaps some of us even enjoy seeking it out there is a flaw in this beautifully sculpted concept. Something which just doesn't quite harmonize with who we seem to imagine God to be.
If God is truly omnipresent and with us everywhere in entirety, how can he be anywhere more or less than he already is? Are we truly comfortable with the idea that God chooses to be some places and not others? Or worse that God is somehow incapable of being somewhere?
None of these seem particularly palatable theological concessions. And further none of these conclusions seem to fit with the person of Jesus Christ. And yet holy ground is not something we can dismiss, it features too prominently in scripture and calls out too powerfully to the human spirit. What then are we to do with the notion?

It seems that, despite our inclination, holy ground cannot be something that is purely geographic. God encompasses the geographic in its entirety. He must be fully and equally present at point A and point B or our very definition of omnipresence falls apart. So why then do we experience some particular locale as holier than another? How is an ancient or secluded place more holy? Herein lies our problem and yet I believe the answer is simple (if not necessarily clear).

Holy ground, rather than being a locale in which God is more fully present, is instead a place in which we become more fully present. A place wherein we allow ourselves to experience the divine that is around us everywhere we go. God is everywhere, he's just waiting for us to meet him where we are. The designation of some places as holier than others gives us the excuse we need to briefly wave aside the veil and glimpse God going past. However, the demarcation of holy ground also allows us to be comfortably blind to the sacred in our daily lives.
When we can learn to find holy ground wherever we walk it completely changes the nature of the sacred for us. As Jesus moved from place to place he didn't bring sacredness with him, rather he revealed the sacredness that was already waiting there. When we open our eyes to God and look for him in the world around us any place can become holy ground, a well in Samaria or the Sea of Galilee. Our homes and our offices, a Wal-Mart or a homeless man's alley. A church or a bar. When we change holy ground from something we seek after to something we carry with us we can encounter God in the most unlikely of places and lives will change as a result, first and foremost our own.

Welcome to Durham: Diversity, Thomas Merton and Love

So here I am. Durham, NC. 8 hours and 12 minutes from my Bluegrass home. Surprisingly, few things are different. Rolling hills, Southern accents of varying degrees, tobacco farms and an unhealthy college basketball obsession still populate and define the landscape.
And yet despite this, or perhaps even because of it, the tiny differences are all the more striking. The most striking change is in the diversity. Durham is immensely diverse with every skin tone, language and faith imaginable seemingly represented in only a few square miles. Headscarfed Middle-Eastern women check out Indian college students at Target. In the Starbucks where I now sit two bakers, one independent and one employed by a grocery, discuss the various issues involved in catering to a Jewish clientele. And of course along the shaded groves and walks that make up the greater Duke area there is the endless milling throng of students of all sorts (even before undergraduate classes begin).

The diversity is echoed in the geography as well. A street of old well-kept homes interspersed with beautiful foliage catering to the upper-middle class and academia of Duke butts up against a lower-income African American neighborhood. A street over the businesses advertise in Spanish and on yet another street an Islamic Community Center shares parking with a Christian Church. The possibility for finding some kind of truly diverse community seems just under the surface. Conversely, of course, tension, hatred and mistrust are always on hand when people of varying sorts meet.

And yet despite the possibility of problems I am encouraged by the things I've begun to see. From my vantage point in the cafe I see a dizzying human rainbow driving, walking and occasionally biking past. I think this the kind of place of Paul would have been drawn to, a place just waiting for barriers to be overcome. It all reminds me of a quote first entrusted to me by one of my professors but originally from the brilliant mind of Thomas Merton:
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness..."

Logic is never going to overcome barriers of discrimination and distrust. And yet where logic fails, Love and Empathy seem to have the amazing power to not simply overcome barriers but to transcend them entirely. Only Love with its strange irrationality. Only Love in its mysticality. That power that Merton suddenly glimpsed at that corner. God touches us and for an instant the illusions of our prejudices fall away."Like waking from a dream of separateness...".  Acts 9:18 (NASV) "And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight..."