Tag Archives: Kingdom of God

August 5, 2011 · 12:55 pm

You as Parable

If folks a thousand years from now preach sermons on your life, what would they walk away with…

Those are the opening lyrics to a song I wrote several years ago.  My reading yesterday in IMAGE journal reminded me of it by way of an interview with Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia.   Brueggemann’s work came to my attention through a couple of books on “The Prophetic Imagination”, and his early comments in the interview I was reading dealt with imagination as it relates to biblical faith.  He cites the work of Paul Ricoeur as being “seminal” in his thinking, especially as it related to Ricoeur’s comments on the parables of Christ.   In looking up Ricoeur’s work, I came across a great little (I say little, it’s pretty long and dense) work by a woman named Sallie McFague, an “American Feminist Christian Theologian”, according to Wikipedia.   Apparently McFague is all about metaphor–”theology is mostly fiction”–which, needless to say, appeals to me.

In the article I was perusing, written in 1975, she quotes Ricoeur as arguing that the forms of the “discourse” of Jesus is just as important as the content, and that the intentional use of parable is to be taken seriously, that Jesus was up to something not only because of what he thought, but because of who he was.    Then she asserts an arresting idea:  Jesus didn’t just speak in parables–Jesus was a parable.

The parables Jesus told, according to McFague, were not ideas to be pondered, but events demanding response.   She suggests that Jesus life did not announce the kingdom of God–it was the Kingdom of God.

Immediately, I thought of our lives as parables, which brings me back to the lyric at the top of this post.   What parable are you living out?  In what way does our life in the everyday living call forth a response from those who encounter our story?   And by encounter I don’t mean encounter the “telling of the story”, but the “living of the story.”  The “living word” is a call to a theatre of action and metaphor and presence, and now I’m back in the realm where I belong.

Metaphor, action, theatre, parable, Christ, art, and imagination.

Pay attention to the parable you’re living….

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November 16, 2010 · 9:57 pm

Does Art Matter?

Sandwich Board for Arthur: The Begetting on Orcas Island

I’ve rarely asked this question.   I’ve always believed in my bones that it does.   But in exiting paid ministry, in which lives can change pretty dramatically as a direct or indirect result of your work, I wonder not only about the theatre, but about art in general.  Who gets their busted lives put back together by art?   When I think of my daughter’s quest to act in film, television, and theatre, and the immense difficulty of that journey, when she is frankly talented enough to work her way into what for most would be a far more lucrative career, I wonder if art matters enough to warrant such sacrifice and struggle.  The “struggling artist” is proverbial enough to be a bad cliche, yet it is the state of affairs for those who create art that has yet to break through into the worlds of fame and fortune.

For a moment, as an exercise, I want to argue the other side.

Let’s say art doesn’t matter.

I suppose the take in that direction would be that art is largely window dressing.  It’s no doubt pleasurable, even delightful, but even if we argue that delight is a good thing, perhaps even a godly thing, then we would assert that some delights are better than others.   Surely the delight taken when a child is fed is far superior to the delight taken during a Moliere comedy.  Surely the meaning wrought from the experience of caring for the elderly and the infirm is far deeper and more godly than the meaning wrought from a deep reading of, or better yet, a fine production of Hamlet.  And to contemplate God directly in prayer is undoubtedly far superior than the contemplation of a Rodin or Rembrandt.   Reading scripture trumps reading the greatest of poetry any day.

So why do art?

A bowl must be made.  Make a functional bowl that will hold water and other stuff, but do not decorate.  Do not take the time to deliberate an iota over the shape, size, color, or texture of the surface.   That time is better spent.

I hardly know how to make the argument.

How about this one:  Jesus didn’t talk about art, except to say that the Temple would be torn down, and the Apostle Paul didn’t think highly of women who were artfully gussied up.  And yes, Jesus told stories, but he was only concerned with the moral behind the story, and not the story itself.   Besides, he didn’t craft them, as in workshopping them and redrafting them…he just told them, perfect structures from the get-go.   So the lesson there seems to be not to worry about much except the moral.   Surely if you focus on the moral, how the story that delivers the moral gets told…well, God doesn’t really care about the quality of that.   Just get the moral lessons out there.   And Jesus never delivered them with any sense of theatre.   He was teaching simply and straightforwardly.   We should do the same.

Anybody’s life been changed by a painting lately?

Sure, art matters, maybe…but maybe not too much.   Perhaps we should spend time composing songs and writing plays after the hungry are fed.   But oh, you say, you should compose and write in order to feed the hungry.   Oh, I see, art making is justified by the ends and uses to which it leads.   A song that leads to benevolence is welcome.  A song that leads personal profit?  Not so good.

So I’m an artist sitting at home, my kids clothes’ are getting worn, our food is less than it might be, and the strain is starting to show itself in my marriage.  (Remember all this is hypothetical, right?  My marriage is great, just so you know.)  Art doesn’t matter.   Taking care of my kids does.   I may be talented, even gifted in my field of art-making, but there’s no market, and the sacrifices are just too great.    Art doesn’t matter anyway, and no one will miss the works of art I might have made.

Why couldn’t I have been a computer developer?  Then I would have been some use to the world.

Too late.

If there’s someone out there who thinks art matters, tell me about it.

Otherwise…

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May 4, 2010 · 6:50 am

Words at 51

My throat’s a little scratchy.   I refuse to give the sensation a name (like “cold”), seeing as any malady seems completely inappropriate on a birthday.   But on this May 4, Nashville is under water, people mourning everything from the loss of homes to the hit to tourism, but more importantly, mourning several older residents of surrounding communities swept away by the fast rising river.   The US and Iran are battling at the UN, most not nearly as concerned about all the nuclear weapons the US has dismantled as they are the number of nukes that remain intact.   A University of Virginia lacrosse player was found murdered last night, allegedly a victim of a bad spat with a former boyfriend.    Apple sold over a million units of the iPad in 28 days (sounds hopeful, anyway), and I notice as I read the headlines (I always forget that I share the date with this event) that there are ceremonies marking the death of the students at Kent State 40 years ago today.  They got the guy that (allegedly) tried to blow up an SUV in Times Square, and some movie star whose name I forget came clean and said he cheated on his wife with one of the same women Tiger got tangled up in.  The oil spill in the Gulf seems really colossal (how do you plug that hole?), and I guess the ash over Western Europe has calmed down enough to let planes back in the air.   Some poor Phillies fan got tasered last night (shouldn’t have been running on the field, I suppose), and on this May 4th, can anybody count the maladies running wild in the world?

A 50-ish couple approaches the coffee shop laughing, pulled along by their beloved dogs.  Steam is rising from cups in front of the two ladies at the window, and the buzzcut junior high student, sitting alone (his father gave him a big hug before he left), butters his bagel with great concentration.   My iPhone bleeps, and I see that a former student, a big old cowboy kind of guy with a grin as big as the state he’s from, just posted a “Happy Birthday” on my wall.  I didn’t sleep all that well, because those bleeps announcing birthday wishes pulsed steadily all night long, an annoyance I apparently valued and found some comfort in.  My son is sleeping just fine, exhausted from the effort of memorizing IPA and Italian arias and idea-battling with his dad, and my wife’s early morning flight is just beginning its descent into Portland.  Oh yes, and my daughter lifts out of LA about now, heading back east to her friends’ production of “Death and the Maiden” at Williams.  The morning latte was especially fine, hotter than usual, which is just the way I like it.  I look up, and two young high school girls, friends of mine, twins, are running, herky-jerky and laughing, to catch the city bus, and the dogs outside bark lazy songs as the bus pulls away.

The question was asked: “What does the pure life of following the Christ look like?”  I don’t know.  I’ll pray today, and inch my way forward, muttering again that something is better than nothing, and believe (even as 51 years of fatigue and mixed results and undeserved blessing rushing at me like a kingdom river run amok) that we have the agency to change the world.  Can we make it perfect?  Who am I to say that when the Kingdom of God comes (Jesus hoped for it, asked for it…so do I), a substantial perfection will or will not be born?   And yes, it’s all God, and our agency is all grace, all metabolized and given life by God’s Spirit and His Will (go to it, theologians, get it right), and it is up to us to reach up and grasp the life He offers and calls us to.  We must plug the oily holes, stop ourselves from killing the ones who infuriate us (be they lovers or enemies or both), nurture the love that is the source of all hope, and feed, clothe, and shelter the ones who somehow land in a place (who cares how they got there) where they lack all of that.   And along the way, we must tell the story, make the meaning, find the beauty, linking arms and hearts and throwing grace to the wind like the farmer with those proverbial seeds.   Little Christs, all of us.

We all wonder:  why are we born?  Why, 51 years ago, did I come climbing into being only to know wonder, loss, ecstasy, heartbreak, and one day out there, at the end of my own personal Act Five, to experience it all slipping away into a pretty long closing of the eyes?   Why?  For what?

For love, for hope, for faith, for God, for joy, for words, for the making of worlds…

For life…

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August 28, 2009 · 6:13 am

Where Heaven and Earth Meet

The nest is empty again.  Amy’s back in Cincy, and Daniel made it back to Ann Arbor late last night.  The house was quiet, and Anjie and I talked, quietly thankful for our kids.   Funny…with our children it’s easy to see and celebrate the two different worlds of what-has-been and what-will-be.

Intersecting worlds of that which we know and that which we don’t.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I had a conversation with a friend–a very, very smart man–in which he described to me his own awe and fascination with our being.   That we are more than the sum of our parts, that we are born for eternity, from and for the realm of God.   He spoke eloquently and with passion, and I was glad to be reminded of the greatness of this essential mystery.

This morning, after a night of restless sleep, I read an article by N. T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, that took me a bit further down this path.  Part of my talk for Sunday morning concerns the Holy Spirit, and Wright lays out in brilliant fashion the role of the Spirit’s work in the intersection of the human realm and God’s realm.  The brilliant enterprise of ushering in the forever reign of God into the now, so that God’s renewing and re-creating life flows into our broken days with power and beauty, is at the heart of the Spirit’s work, even as it was in the beginning.  The Spirit broods and hovers as He always has, but His orientation is somewhat different now, given that the temple in which He resides has changed form.

His temple is us.

Wright points out that according to Christian theology, the disciples of Jesus are walking points of intersection between Heaven and Earth.    That our bodies are dwelling places of God on the Earth, and that because this is not pantheism, wherein rabbits would be every bit as much God’s dwelling place on Earth as Christ-followers, God’s presence and work in our embodied spirits really matters.   Wright observes that this is, of course, offensive in today’s world, where democratic spirituality is the order of the day, all people and religions having equal access to everything, including the mysteries, the wisdom, and the presence of God.   But no, Wright says.  Just as the Jerusalem temple was in fact, the dwelling place of God’s “Shekinah” (visible, manifest) glory, so today, that same “Shekinah” glory resides in His temple still…namely, the church.

Read the article to hear Wright’s answers to the various objections to this notion, the most prevalent of which is how little heaven Christians seem to bring to Earth.    True enough, we’re not very good at this Heaven-making business, but then it’s not our job to make Heaven.  But it is our job to get out of the way so the Spirit can do his creative thing with us.

It’s an inspiring thought, Heaven and Earth meeting here in the little coffee shop where my friend is just sitting down to join me.  Sobering, too.   Where we walk today, there is a portal through which God wants to pour blessing, wisdom, grace, and love, none of it belonging to or originating with us.

May a trail of Heaven-dust litter the trailing path of all who follow Jesus today.

Open the door wide…life coming through…

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August 24, 2009 · 7:00 am

Letting Go: What I Meant to Say

Letting go is a ruthlessly practical matter.

Actors get bound up by inhibitions, fear, and wasted muscular tension.  Relationships go south because wrongs committed become posts to wrap fists around.   New careers go unborn because persistent, outdated self-perceptions just won’t fade.

At this juncture in my life–one more sermon to preach, a new play rehearsal period beginning tonight, projects stretching in front of me that are as yet undefined–I’m wondering out loud what needs to be released in order for what’s coming to get a fair chance.

Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

One day, a young man who had probably heard Jesus speak, had perhaps seen a miracle or two, and at the very least had been rocked by the tales of this man from Nazareth, chased the ragged band of transients down and knelt at the feet of the leader.   Catching his breath, he asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  There’s an exchange about just who is good, and a commandment or two, then Mark’s gospel gives us the small detail “Jesus loved him.”  Then Jesus gives him a simple answer to a simple question.  “Go, sell everything you own and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.  Then, come follow me.”  The rich young man, terribly disappointed, turned and leaves, and the Christ explains to his followers it’s just hard to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, especially if you’ve got lots of money.

Yesterday, in my sermon, I framed this story by freezing on the moment in time in which the young man heard Jesus’ answer.  He faced, and made, a decision.  Would he let go of what he had in order to gain the treasure he had found?   Then I proposed that we, both personally and as a church, are this young man, splayed at Jesus’ feet, asking, “How do we find the kind of life that will last?  How do we beat death?  How do we live the way you do?  What does Kingdom living look like, the kind of living that has God and love written all over it?”

I’d hoped to hold “Love” and “Letting go” in tension, implying a relationship between the two, especially as it relates to the felt experience of receiving love.  In the end, the young man missed the fact that the most astonishing love was creating a world in which it was perfectly safe to let go of his former treasure.  He didn’t notice this organic compassion, the move of Jesus’ heart toward him.  Blinded by the threat of having to give up what he knew, what he’d fought for, perhaps the only thing in life that was really his, he missed the experience of love.  By clutching the past, he missed the treasure he was really looking for.  The life of the Christ moved on, and the text gives us no indication of what happened to this young man, but the implication is that he never lived out the answer to his question, never found the life that beats death.

Thinking back over the sermon, I’m not sure I said what I meant to say.   What I meant say was this:  the act of “letting go” is a key to the love of Christ becoming an experience of felt reality. Like actors, we have “blocks,” mental, emotional, and physical states of being that inhibit our ability to receive and respond fully to what’s happening around us.  Mental and muscular tension tie actors up in literal knots, and as we grip our riches, our guilt, our ambitions, our pride, our pasts–whatever, our muscles are tied up, and we are unable to receive the new life of love the Spirit is incessantly pouring into those of us who believe.  For actors, untying those knots is critical.  Release through training and discipline allows creativity, nuance, and full-hearted freedom to inform the acting moments, and until the blocks are dealt with and released, the power of their full imagination and humanity will not come pouring in.

Sounds like the old metaphors…empty the cup to fill it, open the hand to receive, die to live.  The practice of letting go daily sounds a lot like cross-carrying.

If the rich young man had given up his riches, not only would he have found life, he would have experienced, in his heart and bones, the love of God.

What must a church give up to allow the experience to pour through it into the lives of the its surrounding community?

What must I let go of in order to experience that fullness of the love of the Christ that Paul was talking about?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

Maybe that’s closer to what I meant…

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