Good News

As of Tuesday of last week, I have a new job. Calvary Church is one of our favorite spots in all Minneapolis, so when they announced an opening for a newly designed administrative and communications role, I did not wait long to apply - the perspective of biking to work at a place with the kind of impact on our community that this church has seemed almost too good to be real! Calvary is not only one of the few truly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic churches in this state where Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week - it is a community of mature, glad-hearted followers of Jesus who strive to be messengers of justice and good news right here in our neighborhood.

One of the perks of my new job, which some half-jokingly call a crucible, is that I get to work alongside of Calvary's pastor. Jeff has served this particular congregation for the last 24 years, ever since his graduation from seminary, and he might just be one of the most outgoing people you've ever met. He is loud, uproarious and passionate for his flock. He can soothe a crying toddler and fix a broken boiler as well as he can preach, and he knows the name of every single person who raises their hand during our weekly ritual of offering God our praise, pain and protest.

On my second or third day on the job, a woman from the neighborhood walked into our office asking for help. Her weary face reflected a lifetime of struggle and much pain, but she did not come in asking for money. A week since deciding to quit smoking, she had just found out that she has lung cancer. What she came for was for someone to soothe her and tell her that not all was lost. As we sat down, she was so choked up with anxiety that she could barely breathe. "I try my best to trust God" - she said between short, shallow breaths - "but I'm afraid this is His punishment."

Just by the time I managed to soothe her enough to breathe normally, Jeff returned to the office from a short errand and sat down with us. I knew he was having a busy day so I expected a quick prayer and a pat on the back - something like "God is in control of everything and you should just trust Him" - but his response to the woman was nothing like that. "This is not the end, sister" - he told her, "This is an invitation to a new beginning." He told her that she is God's beloved daughter - that God does not look at her as a punishing Judge, but as a compassionate Father. He told her that she needs God's people around her to help her through this time, and to help her see herself through God's eyes which are so different than the condemning eyes of this world. He told her that this time was an invitation from God to enter into a deeper relationship with Him where she would find lasting peace. His words carried no hint of shaming or judgment - they sounded like surprisingly Good News.

Good News - that is the literal meaning of the biblical word "Gospel." In the experience of too many, including myself, "Gospel" has come to mean anything but that - it has in fact become news of sin, condemnation, inadequacy and shame. If you're not a Christian, the "Gospel" message is that you're an abomination in God's eyes. If you are, you should be ashamed of yourself for not preaching the "Gospel" to all the lost sinners you know.

Sin, condemnation and shame are all an inevitable part of our reality on this planet - but Jeff's words reminded me that this is precisely the reality that Jesus came to rescue us from. And if that is the Good News of the Gospel, I might actually want to tell someone about it... In fact, I might actually want to hear it myself over and over again!

Makarios

μακάριος (makarios): blessed, fortunate, happy

It is one of the ironies of my existence that just when I come to live in the Land of Streets Paved With Gold, as we imagined it in my childhood, America enters into its greatest recession since the 1930s. For the last couple of months, hardly a day has gone by without some bad news: foreclosures, bankruptcies, bailouts, record-high unemployment, plummeting GDP - judging by the tones of some experts on the radio, an economic Armageddon. We have not been affected as severely as others, being that we're both young and have no stake in the stock market; but it's sobering to watch how deeply this crisis bites into the hopes and financial futures of many people we know. 

As analysts continue to predict doom and gloom, we continue as a house church in our meditation on the Sermon on the Mount - a radical reversal of the idea of who is really well off in the first place. Recently, Billy led us in a discussion of the fourth Beatitude - "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." As with all the Beatitudes, this one in particular makes me wonder at times whether Jesus forgot to point out some mysterious connection. Blessed are those who see the endless destruction, corruption and exploitation? Who notice the abused kids, discriminated minorities, battered women, hypocritical preachers; the ravaged earth, cycles of poverty and trampled human dignity - who see these things clearly enough to cry out for justice? 

 

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise" - I thought to myself recently at Disneyworld, where all I could see at one point were the tons of disposable plastic disappearing at the magical touch of minimum-wage "cast members" after being thrown away by crowds who had just stepped off the "Living with the Earth" ride featuring eco-friendly fish farms and sustainable crops. Do you see yet why I haven't blogged in a while? When all you see in "the happiest place on earth" is plastic, you begin to wonder... 

I will admit that I do not come at the Beatitudes as a clean slate - they have always made me extremely uncomfortable. I think it started when I was a little girl and sometimes heard the Bible interpreted  in ways which implied that God is so entirely different from us that His  definitions of good or evil might actually be the opposite of ours - so in God's view, I might actually be "blessed" by being utterly miserable. When you are five years old and hear of a good God who orders the Canaanite men, women and children slain without mercy, textual criticism does not exactly emerge as a possible solution - either the good God or the definition of goodness has to go. Parting with the latter seemed like the choice of a lesser of two evils, and although I gave up this dichotomy a long time ago, it still surfaces as a haunting suspicion that may just lie beneath the surface of all conscious sin - "God, are you really good?" 

Imagine my amazement, then, when no one in house church ever brought any of this up. I sat there waiting for somebody else to voice my suspicion, but it never came - what came instead 

was a collective insight so simple and brilliant that my suspicion suddenly appeared like the whining of a disgruntled teenager. Of course those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are filled - their appetites are directed towards a healthy and nutritious kind of food, as opposed to empty fast-food calories. The gods of Greed, Consumerism and Security, rooted in the ancient lie of self-serving gain, are gods all right - but gods with no power to fill or save. This is one of my favorite aspects of doing theology as a community - thanks to the company of others on the journey, I'm able to discover my own slant and hidden prejudice, and be faced once again with the unimaginable reality of a God who really desires to give me hope and genuine abundance, even in the midst of crisis. 

Neighbor

A man was returning home from a visit to the International House of Prayer via a country road when his Timing Belt suddenly broke, startling him and sending him into the ditch. He emerged with a dazed look and a bleeding forehead from hitting the dash. The man knew that he was in the middle of nowhere and that it could be hours before he saw another car.

Just then he saw what looked like a tour bus driving towards him in the distance. He couldn't believe his eyes - it was the bus of one of his favorite televangelists! He cried out in joy and began to wave frantically at the bus with his shirt but the bus picked up speed as it passed him on its way to the next major city. The man stared in disbelief and sunken hope.

As he swaggered back to his car he again caught the glimpse of a vehicle in the distance coming towards him. It was the unmistakable outline of a 15 person church youth van complete with luggage trailer and an emblazened cross on the side door. The man's heart leaped once again as he waved his shirt and cried out in distress. He slowly lowered his arms as the van sped by him full of teenagers pointing and laughing at his predicament.

No sooner had this van passed when the man noticed another car coming his way. He started to raise his shirt once again but then stopped when he noticed a large rainbow sticker on the front of the car. He momentarily cursed himself for his prominent bumperstickers touting his political and religious views. To his surprise the car pulled to a stop behind him. Out stepped a well dressed young man who, with an effeminate tone, asked him if he needed some help. The man was dumbfounded. The stranger drove the man to the next town and, while he was in the emergency room, arranged for a tow truck to get his car and paid for his hospital bills...

"Go and do likewise"
Lk. 10:25-37

Counterscript (I)

Last Saturday, the Storks' Nest once again became a bustling seat of activity as our home filled up with some of our favorite people in the world, gathered once again to remember the story we have all chosen to live by, and to nurture one another as we all seek to follow the alternative scenario of the kingdom of God.

Those gathered in our living room come from various religious traditions - some have been raised in Evangelical megachurches, some graduated from a Pentecostal Bible college, others grew up Catholic, were part of a house church, watched preachers on TV or attended liberal churches with a strong emphasis on social justice. We've gravitated towards each other not just in reaction to our respective traditions - although we do vary in our level of criticism towards where we came from and openly bring those to the table, open to the realization that we've each been equipped with a set of key questions, commitments and preconceptions.

What pulls us together is a common sense that the dominant scripts of our culture, including the religious ones, fail to deliver the safety and happiness they promise. At the same time, we've all stolen glimpses of a very different story, one which makes my heart sing. It seems implausible, impractical, counterintuitive - and yet it is here that the blind see, the poor inherit a kingdom, those in mourning find their tears carefully counted; it is here that being takes precedence over having or doing, happiness is not an impossible goal but a pleasant side effect, and we find the heavens friendly and near.

The trouble is that those glimpses are fleeting, and we live in proximity to many powerful idols: Consumerism, Progress, Technology, Militarism, Romantic Love, Therapism, Liberal Guilt, Prosperity Gospel - to list just a few of the ones we mentioned the other night. They are compelling and popular stories that we repeatedly give in to, only to come full circle with Qoheleth - "all is vanity and striving after wind." That's when we remember the strange distant music of the Gospel. We gather again in someone's living room to hear the Counterscript, perhaps in the Beatitudes. We hear the truth about the shape we're in, and that truth telling makes us free.