Review: The Sacred Journey

Charles Foster tells us one of his purposes in penning The Sacred Journey, part of the Ancient Practices series  (Thomas Nelson, 2010), is to offer readers a theology of pilgrimage. He does so with verve and a delightfully unpredictable take on a topic begging for a thoughtful, modern exploration from a low church/evangelical perspective. But he does much more than that in this 230-page addition to the series. Foster invites challenges, provokes, prods, woos, refutes, affirms and, in each one of the book's fourteen chapters, reminds us who we were created to be: pilgrims.

Foster noted that the idea of pilgrimage is embedded in many religious cultures: "Without indicating the source, I wrote down several dozen quotations on the subject of pilgrimage culled from most of the main religions. I asked the theologically sophisticated Christian audience to identify the 'Christian' ones. They couldn't. They were hopeless. When I told them which was which, they were amused and horrified." 

However, Foster differentiates Christian pilgrimage as something that helps us disengage from the toxic tendencies found in some of our modern expressions of faith: "Physical pilgrimage involves bodies, blisters, hunger, and diarrhea. And it's a kingdom activity. It is accordingly one of the best prophylactics against, and cures for, one of the the deadliest and most prevalent diseases crippling the church: gnosticism. It is also effective against bigotry, self-righteousness and angst." Foster addresses topics including God's "bias" on behalf of wanderers and edge-dwellers, offers some compelling reasons about why (and where) we should go, how to travel, the community found on the road, the journey home, and a look at the Debbie Downer settlers who oppose the idea of pilgrimage. Anecdotes from his own journeys, stories and quotes from pilgrims through time, and a solid, thoughtful approach to the material are designed to rattle you - and move you.

This is not a guidebook or a how-to manual. There are no packing lists, pilgrimage destination ideas or insider tips. This book is about why pilgrimage matters. By the time you finish reading The Sacred Journey, you will likely realize that it matters far more than you ever realized. Recommended. 

It's not a small world after all

I almost always experience an awkward moment or two when a roomful of people is asked to break into small groups. Do I follow the person sitting next to me into a group? Do I intentionally drag my chair across the room to join a too-small circle?

Last night I attended a prayer meeting where we were asked to do the self-selection dance. I didn't know many people there, so I headed toward the nearest, largest group. I didn't have time to look around at the others in the group before we began praying. I closed my eyes and listened intently to the voices of the others around me so I could join my soul's yes to their words of intercession.

As I did, I heard the soft, lyrical lilt of an African accent. Then the British-tinged English of an Indian couple. The carefully-selected syllables of an Asian gentleman. The different colors of American English spoken by people who'd grown up in places other than Chicago.

Ribboned throughout the book of Revelation, there are mentions of multitudes from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before God. All see him for who he really is; all bow the knee; and a song of gratitude rises from those he is redeeming. When I pray with a group like the one I prayed with last night, it brings the unspeakable beauty of God into time and space. 

No, I'm not being idealistic here. I think we experience the Eternal with us any time we pray with another person, even if it is someone as familiar as a spouse or old friend. We are all different enough that those who are most like us are still worlds apart from us. The act of corporate prayer is an immigrant act that moves us beyond our own little fiefdoms and self-boundaries in order to breathe the air of a kingdom without borders. The pain of Babel and the promise of Pentecost are our passport. Jesus Christ is himself the visa into his Kingdom. When we pray, we are, for an eternal moment, home at last together.

But I always experience this reality most deeply when I am in an international prayer group like the one I was in last night. The people in my group last night would never find ourselves in a room in a clumsy circle crossing our own personal borders if left to our own devices. Never! But because of God, we were, for an eternal moment, home together.

How about you? When have you most acutely sensed the eternal breaking into time and space?

Review: One.Life

"Every time the single-moment act of accepting Christ becomes the goal instead of the portal, we get superficial Christians. And every time personal practices of piety wiggle away from the big picture Jesus sketches before his followers, it becomes legalism."

In his newest book, Dr. Scot McKnight wants to help us move away from these shallow ideas of what it means to follow Jesus. One.life: Jesus calls, we follow (Zondervan, 2010) could easily be called, "Your idea of discipleship is too small. Wayyyy too small."

McKnight is the rare Biblical scholar who is as adept as communicating with popular audiences as he is writing for his ivory tower'd academic peers. His Jesus Creed blog has long been a mainstay of my online spiritual diet - this site's wide-ranging, intelligent and wholly civil discourse about everything from theology to Crocs is a model of what it can look like to have a thoughtful, gracious online conversation. In fact, I won my copy of One.life by participating in a contest on his blog. (Yes, the cranberry-chocolate chip ribbon cookies did it for me once again!)

But I would have probably purchased this book. It is that good - and is desperately needed. The premise sounds simple, but the ideas in One.life are anything but simple. McKnight explores what it means to follow Jesus - and shows us that the call to discipleship will require a "yes" from every area of our lives - heart, soul, mind and strength. There are 14 chapters in this 200-page book covering themes including committment, justice, church, sex, vocation, eternity and more. Instead of creating a rah-rah, you-can-do-it, go-team call to discipleship, McKnight instead builds his case the way that Jesus did - by inviting people to experience his kingdom, insisting that the usual definitions of kingdom used in most corners of evangelicalism these days are selfish, small copies of the real thing. He notes, "This word kingdom is being used so often today it's getting muddled and fuzzy. It has been internalized by some into an inner experience, it has been socialized by others into a program for ending poverty and creating better laws and saving the planet, and it has been downsized by yet others into little more than a personal spirituality."

The truth is that few of us want to give our lives to something smaller than us - and these ways of presenting the kingdom have attempted to shrink it into something we can carry and manage. Each chapter in One.life attempts to unhook our popular notions about how the kingdom works in order to show us that the kingdom is so much bigger than any of these wee components. McKnight closes each of the first few chapters of the book by developing a working definition for the kingdom invitation that is firmly rooted in the words and works of Jesus. Between each chapter is a one-page "interlude" section designed to do kingdom work by busting the invitation out of the pages and into our heart, soul, mind and strength. 

Though this book would be an ideal gift for someone in their twenties or thirties, I believe readers of all ages will benefit from possibly having a few of their own sacred ideas challenged about what kingdom life is. This would be a great book for a study group to tackle as well. Recommended.

Of Sarah and shoddy semantics

I rarely post anything of a political nature, but I couldn't let this pass without exercising my First Amendment rights:

In the wake of Jared Loughner's evil attack on Arizona Congresswoman Giffords and the crowd who'd gathered for a Saturday morning meet `n greet at a grocery store, Sarah Palin and her media team produced a statement designed to redirect attention onto the event and away from the charges that overheated conservative hyperbole somehow contributed to the tragedy. Unfortunately, ex-govenor Palin chose to use one of the most loaded pieces of hyperbole in the English language in order to try to ensure that her audience would remember that she, too, is a victim - of the media:

"But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

For those who aren't quite sure what "blood libel" means, click here to learn more about it. This heinous phrase has been used to justify two millenia of anti-Semitism, though it has dropped out of common usage (except in White Supremacist circles) until Ms. Palin's usage of it brought it back into the limelight. What made her usage particularly offensive is the fact that Rep. Giffords has been a member of a Reformed synagogue since 2001. I have a hard time believing that no one on Palin's communications team realized that her usage of this loaded phrase wouldn't be...well, so reprehensible.

Since my audience is mostly Christians, let me apply this to our context. Palin, who has been quite vocal about her faith in Christ, communicated afresh to Jewish people that Christians aren't necessarily safe or sensitive people.

I know this isn't true. Some people who wear the banner "Christian" aren't safe or sensitive, and it doesn't take a dunderheaded remark by a spotlight-lovin' politician to demonstrate this. However, many others who love Jesus live their love for him and others in countless, selfless kingdom ways. I am praying that those who live in this narrow way lives rub up against those who've been reminded this week that a lot of hurt has been heaped on Jewish people by spiritual pretenders and believers who've flat-out ignored their calling and ministry.

When a church baseball team is named "The Crusaders", when a pastor calls the temple or a synagogue "a church" in a sermon, when someone tries to buddy up to a Jewish visitor using a line like "My accountant/doctor/neighbor/fill-in-the-blank is Jewish", the words sprinkle salt into old, old wounds. Let Ms. Palin's icky word choice give all of us an opportunity to think about how to choose gracious words that honor our Jewish Savior and Lord and demonstrate love to his beloved children.

Review | The Gospel of John: When Loves Comes To Town

When I worked at Trinity International University's bookstore, we stocked shelves and shelves of Bible commentaries. At the beginning of each new semester, a few gung-ho young seminarians would come in to the store and browse the commentaries in order to debate the the academic and theological street cred of various authors. Most seminarians couldn't afford to buy many commentaries, but they sure did like to window shop! I browsed my fair share of commentaries as well, and borrowed armloads of them when I was working on my own books about the parables of Christ. As a result, I developed a few opinions about commentaries:

• I enjoyed the work of commentators who could give me accessible historical, cultural or linguistic background. Key word here: accessible.
• I valued the authors who tried to let the text speak for itself, instead of insisting it serve their own theological or political agenda.
• I was challenged by the work of commentators who wrote with a pastor's heart - those willing to apply the text to their own lives as well as the lives of their readers.
• I appreciated the writing of commentators who could contextualize their words for their particular culture and time while simultaneously affirming the timelessness of God's story. 
• I gave bonus points to commentators who could actually write, versus spewing breadcrumb-dry academic-speak.

If Paul Louis Metzger's The Gospel Of John: When Love Comes To Town (InterVarsity Press, 2010) had been available during the years I worked at the bookstore, I would have interrupted a few of those students browsing the commentary aisle in order to direct their attention to this readable volume, the first of the new "Resonate" series which will be edited by Metzger. When Love Comes To Town is exactly the kind of volume I can sink my teeth into. 

Metzger, a professor of theology at Multnomah Biblical Seminary, explains the "why" behind this series:

     Our aim with this distinctive new genre or approach is to have one finger in the ancient Scriptures, another in the daily newspaper, and another finger touching the heart, all while pointing to Jesus Christ...Each contributor to Resonate seeks to bear witness to Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, through the written Word in and through their own life story and the broader cultural context. So often we go around Scripture to Jesus or stop short at Scripture, not penetrating it to get to Jesus' heart - which is the Father's heart too.

When Love Comes To Town is divided into six main sections following the chronology of the Gospel. Each of those sections is subdivided into smaller slices that allow Metzger to invite readers to taste the wonders of each recorded moment of Jesus' ministry. For instance, here's what he had to say about the way Jesus chose to heal the blind man in John 9:

     ...the very means Jesus uses to heal the man of his blindness should tell you that his life is about to get messier...Jesus spits on the ground to make mud, places the mud on the blind man's eyes and has his go to a pool to wash (John 9:6-7). Couldn't Jesus have chosen some other means? Knowing Jesus, however, he wouldn't chose some other means. Why would he, given how he and his Father tend to operate? Just think for a minute. Jesus' whole life is a bit messy, from beginning to end - from being a baby thought by many to be born out of wedlock on a not-so-silent night, to being a supposed messianic pretender dying a criminal's death on an old rugged cross.
     Life was so much easier for the man born blind before meeting Jesus. He depended on his parents from birth, and on the Jewish welfare system too. He didn't have to do much, just as he didn't have much to do. But now his life changes drastically, suddenly. It gets messy.

This commentary drew me into the dust and heat of conflict while at the same time inviting me to follow Jesus away from the poppy field lure of a comfort-seeking life. Metzger blends voices and references from contemporary culture (Will Ferrell!) with the words of scholars like D.A. Carson and Craig Keener, all with a single goal - to help each one of us move off the La-Z-Boy and into the way of Jesus. Highly recommended.

* I received a comp copy of this volume from the publisher.

Ted dreamed a dream...

Three days ago, Ted Williams was a homeless guy panhandling along a freeway. Now he's the latest media sensation in a you tube genre first clicked into life by viral viewings of the never-been-kissed middle-aged Susan Boyle. When Ted opened his mouth and a velvety FM baritone came out, the world stopped for a moment to listen - and then forwarded Ted's feel-good story on to their friends.

Everyone loves a happy ending, and as the offers and media appearances are now piling on for Ted as they did for Susan, I pray he gets his. The demands of life in the spotlight can shatter an emotionally-fragile person. Boyle has had mental health issues in the wake of her meteoric rise to fame. Ted is now in the spotlight on the back end of years of addiction and a decade of homelessness. Happy endings at mid-life don't come without reckoning with the large assortment of second-hand Samsonite baggage these folks (and most of the rest of us) carry.

I am grateful that occasionally our gaze turns from the manufactured beauty of most celebrities to embrace talent in battered packaging. Ted and Susan serve as pieced-together icons of hope for the rest of us - all of the un-pretty, battle-scarred rest of us. Buried just beneath Ted or Susan's mangy, pre-celebrity exteriors was the shock and awe of their stunning, incongruous talent.

But maybe the best use of the little jolt of hope we get from these Star Is Born you tube stories is to remind us tune our ears to those around us for a moment so we can hear the beautiful music coming from a neglected, broken, un-pretty neighbor, coworker or friend.

Update from Pillow Mountain

Hello, 2011! Though recovery from shoulder surgery is no fun, I am happy to be typing with two hands today thanks to my new friend Mr. Vicodin and a big pillow propping my right forearm. Many people have been praying for me, and that prayer support has translated into a different kind of big pillow during the last few days.

Here's a brief photo update:

Years ago, I had a friend who worked at a trophy factory. She made me this bowling trophy look-a-like plaque that reads: "The Eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the Everlasting Arms - Deut. 33:27". I shot a picture of it on top of the icing machine I am using several times a day. I have sensed God's strong arms carrying me through some long, hard days, thanks to the prayers of many. I know I can trust him as I continue to move through the weeks of recovery still ahead.

I call this Pillow Mountain. Because I need to sleep and rest in a mostly-upright position, this is where I've been hanging out. The cat staked out her turf on the hillside as soon as I stood up.

The doctor gave me three pages of pictures from the surgery so he could show me what they did. It turns out that I did not have a rotator cuff tear after all. When I asked why I'd been in so much pain all these months, the Physician's Assistant said, "Just because there was no tear doesn't mean you weren't in a lot of pain." The pictures showed some serious arthritis, geode-like bone spurs and a lot of inflammation. (The biceps shot above is a good example. The tissue is not supposed to be bright red, but white.) They assured me that surgery was absolutely the right decision in this case. 

The day before the surgery, I just so happened to read Hebrews 4:12-13 ("For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.") Even though I have watched a record amount of TV, I have simultaneously found myself returning to these sobering words over the last few days. Just as the surgeon's arthroscopic tools were used to clean, scrape and re-engineer my unhealthy shoulder joint, so is God's living scalpel meant to expose and heal me so I can love him with my heart, soul, mind and strength. 

Blessings!