Something I've Noticed

I liked Peterson's discussion of the 7 signs and especially his summary on page 98 of how our "sterotyped ideas of what God does and how he does it" cause us to misread the signs of God's presence and activity. It's a list I can use to reflect on my own state of mind.

In the 7th sign -- the raising of Lazarus -- Peterson notes the presence of Caiaphas (something I don't think I'd ever noticed!) and concludes the section with this: "For [Caiaphas] this [sign] was the last straw. He promptly set the machinery in motion to kill Jesus." An amazing reaction to seeing someone brought back to life.

This reminds me of something I've noticed in pastoral ministry. Mostly, the people we've loved sacrificially (stood by in times of crisis or trouble, gone the second, fifth, or tenth mile with, etc. -- the people to whom we've tried to be "signs" of Christ's presence and love in times of darkness, disorder, or confusion) are grateful for our our ministry to them. But, almost without fail, the handful of people who've "turned on us" with severe criticism or outright rejection also come from these ranks.

Those Godincidences

Peterson's section on signs reminded me of the variety of incidents we call God glimpses or God-sightings, or, as one NPWL Board member called them, Godincidences. (I think there's a fun sermon title!)

Anyway, I love these. I'm not all that good at seeing them in the moment, but my kids are leading me there. They have such a sense of wonder I'm trying to learn from. They assume these events are of God, when I tend to look for the scientific explanation - as if God can't work with and through science. So, part of the challenge is awareness.

Part is also the ordinariness of the signs. I like that Gene says "submit to and receive Jesus whenever and wherever" (p. 99). It gives the sense of the always-present-God a new image for me.

Anyone got a Godincidence to share?

Grounding Text (2): St. John

Peterson is adamant about the idea that our spiritual lives must be grounded in the specific time and place in which we live. He makes the point that the gospel of John re-writes the Genesis creation story and presents Jesus as both the Creator at work within us and also the creation of which we are all a part. The Incarnation shows us that we cannot expect to live more spiritually if we only lived in better circumstances or if we could just escape the "humdrum" of ordinary life. We must live our lives robustly to the glory of God right where we are.

This idea continues to challenge me, because I admit I want to escape or I think "if only I didn't have such difficult people in my congregation, I would be a better pastor", etc. Interestingly, I think people in our churches have these same feelings/thoughts. I've had people tell me that it must be easier for me to be "spiritual" because it's my job and I have time to pray/read my Bible/serve. Our task as pastors is to help people live out their faith in the context of their ordinary lives, not to look for a "higher spiritual plane" as the gnostics do.

Peterson's discussion on the importance of words made me reflect on two things: 1) Are my sermons full of abstract ideas more than words that challenge practical spiritual living? 2) How can I be more intentional in my conversations with people to create community and to help them see spirituality in everyday life?

Intimacy

What a gift that God has given us, the capacity to be in intimate relationships. Peterson is very insightful when he points out that the gift of intimacy in the garden was prefaced by an assignment to name the animals. He talks about two friends who walk into a forest, and while one looks around and sees trees, brush, flying things, the other knows what each is specifically called and thus is "more alive" and more in relation to the life around them and more in relation to God. But then he continues on and says it's not enough to have a deep love of nature. We must have just as deep of an appreciation for other human beings, for they too are part of creation. "If we are going to enjoy and celebrate and live this gift of place in which the Lord God has placed us, we are going to have to embrace the people around us with the same delight as we do the hawks soaring above us and the violets blooming at our feet" (83-84). How true, yet how difficult at times!

Several years ago when I was working in youth ministry, one of the summer trips we offered was a week-long boat adventure on Lake Powell. I was asking one of the students what she had liked most about the trip--what most of the youth were impressed with was the incredible beauty of the location, the crystal-clear water, the stunning mountains surrounding the lake. Indeed, she reported how she was in such awe of God's creation and how close she felt to God in such a beautiful setting. But then she said that she realized how easy it was for her to admire God's beauty in nature and yet so discount God's people whom he had also created. She told me that her week on Lake Powell convicted her that she needed to view her friends and even the difficult people in her life the same way she viewed the rest of God's creation. If she could see God in nature and worship God more fully because of her setting, how much more should she be in awe of God because of the people in her life, even those difficult to love? Her goal after that trip was to see and embrace God more fully in the people around her. Pretty amazing!

Freedom and Necessity

Anyone want to comment on this sub-section?

The Human

What struck me about this sub-section is Peterson saying that we are "the identical stuff with the place in which we have been put. God formed us from dust, from dirt--the same stuff that we walk on every day...the same stuff in which we plant our gardens" (p. 76). Ash Wednesday is always such a poignant service to me, because we have to grapple with the truth that we are but dust, and that truth leads to humility before God. So the idea that we are part of the earth and it is part of us reminded me of one of my favorite David Crowder songs:

Wholly Yours

I am full of earth/You are Heaven’s worth/I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity.
You are everything that is bright and clean, the antonym of me/You are divinity.
But a certain sign of grace is this: From the broken earth flowers come up, pushing through the dirt.

CHORUS:
You are holy, holy, holy
All Heaven cries, holy, holy God
You are holy, holy, holyI want to be holy like You are

You are everything that is bright and clean/And You’re covering me with Your majesty.
And the truest sign of grace was this: From wounded hands redemption fell down, liberating [all].
CHORUS
But the harder I try, the more clearly can I feel the depth of our fall and the weight of it all.
And so this might could be the most impossible thing--Your grandness in me making me clean
Glory, hallelujah/Glory, glory, hallelujah/
CHORUS
So here I am, all of me, Finally everything!
Wholly, wholly, wholly - I am wholly, wholly, wholly!
I am wholly, wholly, wholly…Yours


Okay, but the part that I had trouble with in this same section of the book was Peterson's quote on p. 77: "The gospel of Jesus Christ has no patience with a spirituality that is general or abstract...that takes as its theme song, 'This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through.'" I know what he's saying, that spirituality is lived out on this earth. However, how do we balance living fully while we are here and yet anticipating heaven, our true home? And what about those who are living in a constant state of suffering--children dying of AIDS in Africa, impoverished families in South America, etc. For them, this world is not where they want to live. Thoughts??

The Creation Gift of Place

Peterson sees Genesis 2 structured by place, while Genesis 1 was structured by time. I think his experience as a pastor really shines through in this section. Just as God planted a garden in a specific place, Eden, so too God places each of us in a specific location on earth to live out our Christian faith. He writes that he spent his life as a pastor trying to teach people that a sense of place (where they worked, raised their children, played golf, ate meals, etc) was the exclusive and irreplaceable setting for following Jesus...but that this was mighty difficult work (73). Do you find this is true in your own pastoral ministry?

It was a good reminder to me that there is no such place as "utopia," and we ought not to expect it or encourage our church members to seek it. Right now, as our church has been in such transition and frustration/apathy abounds, it is very easy for people to leave the church or quit attending because they think that there's got to be a better place to worship or that things will change and get suddenly better when a new senior pastor comes. I admit that I too, unlike Gregory of Nyssa, do not want to stay where I have (for the time being) been placed. Yet, "God deals with us where we are and not where we would like to be" (75). I can still hope that he will soon take me to a new place, right?

We Got Rhythm

Several years ago we got convicted about taking a sabbath. We experimented with different days of the week, trying to fit one into our clergy couple way of life. For me it was a total flop. I just couldn't do it. The decisive breakthrough came when I started conceiving of a sabbath as that ran from evening to evening, instead of morning to morning. I still experienced difficulties and challenges in practicing a sabbath--there was a definite learning curve!--but the main obstacle seemed to have been eliminated. It was quite amazing.

One of the main things I noticed about myself over time was the way my body seemed to long for the approaching sabbath. We've found that Friday is the best sabbath day for us, and we usually welcome the sabbath with a somewhat special meal on Thursday evening. On most Thursday afternoons, I become aware that I'm leaning into this approaching experience of rest.

I have difficulty putting this leaning into sensation into words. I say it's physical, but that doesn't really do it justice because it seems to be all of me that leans--body, mind, heart and soul. But I only experience this leaning thing at night, not in the morning, which is why I have to begin my sabbath in the evening as Jews do. Something Peterson says in this week's reading resonates here: We are embedded in time, but time is also embedded in us (68). I wonder: is my leaning a sign of tapping into some kind of temporal DNA?

What have been your experiences with this?

Rhythm in Genesis 1

Wow, Peterson's insights about the structure of Genesis 1 were new and fresh for me. I had never noticed the structure of the creation story in that chapter and how it formed a rhythmic pattern: 123456777--If you say the numbers out loud, it sounds like you're counting a waltz.

Peterson says that it is the rhythm of time "that keeps us participant and present, inhabiting time, tapping our foot, instead of being a mere onlooker to it, measuring it with a clock" (68). In one way, I think this is true. When I played in the high school band, we would periodically do these exercises to help our improvisational skills. The percussion would start out with a rhythm to keep time, and everyone would play a basic blues progression. Then, each individual had 16 counts to play a solo and improvise a song while everyone else kept playing the basic tune and kept the rhythm. You had to pay attention to the rhythm so that when it was your turn to play, you would know when it was time to jump in and start your solo. So paying attention to the rhythm of creation and tapping our foot with it can keep us alert to God creating, God blessing, God making, God giving, God calling--that basic rhythm--so that we can then jump in and participate with him and sometimes improvise a song ourselves.

However, in another way, I think that rhythm can be taken for granted and sometimes it can be mind-numbing. For example, we take our breathing and heart beating for granted. In the same way, I think that in our churches, the rhythm of the liturgical seasons or the rhythm of the order of worship each Sunday can be taken for granted and even lull people into spiritual sleep or laziness!

Peterson says that his fantasy about visiting Sister Lychen and "raising her blinds" to see God at work in the world during the week is now his way of life: he is trying to raise the blinds of people's living quarters and get them out of the house between Sundays so they can experience the wonder of God's creation. But here is my question, which Tracie also raised in a previous post: As pastors, how do we open the eyes of those in our congregations to be in awe of God's creation in their daily lives? How do we raise their blinds? And does this really work? Will they participate more deeply in worship? Or are they so numbed by the "rhythm" that they are simply marking time by the seasons and are mere onlookers, rather than full participants in worship?

The Time Gift

The time gift section of Peterson's book hit home in this season of Lent. The 40 days, even though rather dark, are the gift of time. Marty's book stretches me in a new way; some different ways of being church - Lent gatherings, extinquishing candles through the season, doing a Lent series - have helped to notice the time of it. I'm still struggling with the rush on some days, and with the voices in/around me that want to push in, but the intentional season helped to grasp Peterson's point better. There is the notion of God-glimpse for us - this book section read during Lent; the gnostic reminder when churches contemplate leaving; the cohort itself when we each longed for companions on the way.