Bo Sanders: Public Theology

>Often the way we think about something dictates what we think about it. That is why our framing metaphor is so powerful.

A question I love to ask is whether Jesus, if he were teaching today, would use technological examples or if he would still use farming examples. I love to play around with this idea and sometimes I take it one way, sometimes I take it the other.

Today, I want to go in a little bit different direction with it. I got thinking the other day that Jesus never said ‘ the kingdom of heaven is like a chariot’. He never said ‘ if you drink this living water you will become like a Roman aqueduct’. Both of those would have been workable analogies. They were both examples of fine engineering and ingenuity.

Instead he spoke of soil and plants and birds. I have been thinking about the implications of that lately. I love the earth. I am more aware than ever if of the biological nature of my existence and the inter-connection that humans have to nature.

I have also noticed that often when people speak about modern ministry or spirituality they use machine or technology examples. I don’t think that there is anything inherently wrong with that. Often the organizations and structures that we are working in & talking about are human inventions and constructions. So using analogies of inventions and construction fits. If we are talking about institutional change and we want to use an analogy of a house, that may work. That’s not my concern.

My concern is in relation to community and spirituality. I think that organizations are more like organisms than machines. I also see that spirituality is not mechanistic or technological as much as it is organic and dirt-y at the ‘ground’ level.

The word that has got me thinking about this is the word “results”. The question is how do we get different results? Sometimes it comes in this slightly different form of how do we measure success? But that too is results oriented.

In the past month this has shown up in three distinct scenarios. The first was a pastor who wants to make changes in his congregation. The second is a couple who wants to see something different in their marriage. The third is a woman who has a desire for renewed vitality in her spiritual life.

In my conversation with all three of them a discernible pattern emerged. Fundamentally, they wanted to be able to pull out the ‘part’ that wasn’t working and quickly install a replacement part. If a car analogy was used it would be like requesting a new transmission so that ‘we can get back on the road again’. If it was a factory analogy it was so that ‘we can get up and running again’ or ‘get back to business’.

The problem, as if I even needed to say it, is that congregations, marriages and souls are not produced on assembly lines or in factories. And I know that is not what anyone meant to say. It’s just that the analogy was breaking down because the metaphor was not just insufficient but increasingly unhelpful.

So I want to suggest a different metaphor – and old classical: A Plant.

instead of ‘results’ we will talk about flowers or fruit. If you want to bring about different or better flowers there are three other things that you need to be concerned with first: the roots, the stem and the leaves.

Even more important is to realize that this will be a process and that process will take a while. This is why we have seasons. So wisdom is to know which season you are in and to adjust your expectations accordingly.

The roots absorb nutrients and ground the plant for stability. The stem provides structure and strength as well as healthy exchange between the elements. The leaves absorbed sunlight and convert energy.

This analogy works for congregational, relational and spiritual changes.

It helps to verbalize and analyze what our roots are grounded in.

It is essential that we acknowledge the frameworks that hold up the structure, gives shape to us and allow for healthy transfer. This is the conversation about the stem.

When we talk about the leaves we talk about how we are receiving from above (or outside) and how that is being converted to energy.

All three of these conversations happen before we ever address ‘getting different results’. A forth conversation then is ‘what season is it?’ It is time to rest and recharge (winter)? It is time to plow and plant (spring)? Is it time to water and watch (summer)? It is time to prepare for harvest time?

The flower is ultimately a result of health and an expression of life that gives the capacity for more life.

A friend of mine who does marriage counseling told me an interesting story last week. A couple had come in who were just not doing well. In this particular session the husband was being quite vocal about his displeasure with his wife. My friend finally stopped them and said “You have come here because you want me to fix this. Like you take your car to the mechanic, puts it up on the lift and swaps out the part that isn’t working for an identical one ordered from a catalog or that he got from a warehouse, then you pay him and go right back to what you were doing before. But that is not going to happen. You’re wife is sending you signals and trying to tell you that she is not being nourished, she does not feel safe and that she wants a partner who participates in the health of your marriage. You think that the engine is just fine and that everything is running fine — if you just to get a different transmission so that the power transferred back then you could move forward. You want this to be over quickly so that you can get back to business as normal. She is telling you that you are months away from harvest. You need to wake up and figure out what season you are in. There is no sense in acting like it’s close to harvest when you are in winter buddy. Your wife is asking you to turn over soil and plant with her and water your relationship. You want to snap in a new part and be on your way.’

We often pick the analogies, word pictures and metaphors because of how we envision something or what we want to happen. They are revealing. They tell us something.

My only suggestion out of all of this is that when we are talking about something that God made – like the Church and relationships and soul… that we use analogies from things that God made like soil and plants and seasons. They go together so naturally.

to listen to the Podcast of this click [here]

>A couple of years ago I had an interesting exchange with a good friend of mine. We were looking at clothing stores and she made some disparaging remark about ‘tribes’. It took me by surprise and so asked for clarification. She explained to me that she – and many people at her conservative bible believing church- was sick of this New Age-y push to get everybody to see themselves as part of a tribe. (We happen to be looking at a store that carried a brand of sportswear called ‘Tribal’.) I listen for a little bit about how this led away from a biblical worldview and toward New Age definitions of community and allegiances that compromised the church and getting our identify from focusing on God – instead, focusing on ourselves and what ‘tribe’ we were a part of.

I thought about it for a bit and then I said to her ‘ ya know, Tribes are not New Age-y but rather ‘Old Age-y’. They’re very ancient – from the Old Age. They are not a New Age invention. In fact, Tribes are quite biblical. The Hebrews were divided in to 12 of them and even the New Testament talks of ‘every tribe and tongue’ (Rev. 5:9). So I would think that God sees us far more in Tribes than as the Enlightenment did as Individuals.”

I am really worried about how we are conceiving of things that allows us to call ‘New’ what is ‘Old’ and ‘un-biblical’ what is clearly Biblical. Sometimes I suspect that we called good what is bad and God what is not- God.

Jared Diamond tells a fascinating story in his book “Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed”. He details the trials of the early settlers to Greenland in the 12th Century.

By using written letters, church records in Europe and archeology he draws a picture of people struggling to live in a place because of how they picture themselves and resisted a new identity for the new land and environment.

By looking at the bones in their settlements it is clear that they did not switch from beef that they ate in Europe to the seal meat that the Inuits in the area survived on. They barely ate the fish that they could catch in the waters of their shores (bones were 1:10 ratio compared to Inuit settlements nearby) and there were almost no bird bones even though Ptarmigan were plentiful. It is a tale of refusing to the adjust to the new place or adopt the practices of the indigenous population.

Writings showed that they treasured the view of themselves first as Europeans, second as Christians and third as settlers (Greenlanders). This shows up in there persistence to raise cattle on soil that was not suitable for it. They insisted on using large boats that they got from Dutch designs instead of switching to the canoes utilized by the Inuit. They also put large amounts of time, money and energy into making stone cathedrals with stain glass imported from Europe and costly & distant wine and wheat that were not Native so that the priest would have communion elements.

Their unwillingness to re-imagine their identity and adapt to the actual surroundings and circumstances allowed the experiment to creep along for two of centuries before eventually failing.

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This is why I am interested in re-imagining ourselves as the people of God and re-inventing our conceptions and constructs of God: a global God who works for the next century.

I have been talking about God’s relationship to Haiti [link] over a month before the Earthquake.

I will be honest with you, i have no interest in Pat Robertson’s God who causes an earthquake in Haiti in order to warn the rest of the world or punish them for something that someone else did. (Or any of the famous white preachers who said similar things about the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the Minnesota Tornadoes [link] or the 911 attacks).

That is a concept of God is leftover from when we thought that the world was flat and that heaven was just behind the clouds. That was our conception of the world and of the universe and subsequently how we conceived of God and how ‘he’ worked in the world.

I want to invest in constructs and frameworks (conversations and conceptions) of a Global perspective of God that works in the next century and for the world that we actually live in.

We need a better picture of God. I believe that. I do not think that what we need is to master concepts of God from the centuries past. That is not what we need. We need a Global God for the next century.
That is what I am hoping for here – to concieve together of an Everyday Theology.

Just remember – I am not advocating a new type of Christianity,
I am acknowledging that Christianity is always being made new.

>Summary:
1)If Jesus was being ironic and the Kingdom is actually un-Kingdom and his rule and reign are nothing like a King of his day or the Caesar of his day… how would we know?
2)Does the fact that the two most recognized symbols of Christianity in our culture are icons that represent Mosaic Law and Roman Violence? Does that signal anything about our brand of Christianity? The fact that the 10 Commandments and the Cross are the two most visible signs of Christianity… which ,as stand alone icons, are not the problem but they symbolize a Christianity that is legalistic, legislates morality and employs coercive power structures.
3)If we didn’t learn from Jesus what we were suppose to learn from Jesus then our faith might be more Colonial than Christ, more Caesar than covenant love, more strength than sacrifice and more sword than servant.
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If someone were being ironic, how would we know that?
How did you separate out what they SAID from what I MEANT ?

If I said something outlandish like “ Of course the church should be in charge! Of course we should kill & violently put down those who oppose us. We have to explode the Holy Land and expel those who who occupy it for it is WHERE God lives!”

How did you pick out my sarcasm and absurdum?
It is because you know me? Did you use the way I live as a lens to interpret?

This brings me to my first suggestion:

Maybe when Jesus said ‘Kingdom’ he meant ‘not kingdom’. and when he said ‘I came to bring a sword’ he meant ‘the opposite of a sword’.* Maybe he was being Ironic… riding in on one side of town on a donkey while Rome’s Man rode in on the other side with a full detachment of powerful and armored horses.

We miss Jesus’ irony because we think as Romans (Citizens of Empire) by default.

This is why people think i am doing a semantic flip when I am not.
I actually think that God is weak. I think God loves weakness and I think that God works weakly… through us.

I am not being ironic about that.

Jesus ‘sword’ that ‘divides up families’ does the opposite of what real swords do which is to defend one’s OWN family and countrymen and make people do what YOU want them to.

“What rises up in majesty from the cross is not a show of might but rather forgiveness, not power but a protest against the unjust execution of a just man, a great prophetic “no” to injustice and persecution, a prophetic death rather than a sacrificial exchange that buys a celestial reward. Something unconditional lays claim to us in that weakness – something unconditional but without an exercise of force. He is tried, convicted, tortured, and paraded though the streets in shame on the way to a particularly gruesome public execution, although a common enough display of imperial power in the Roman world.” – John Caputo

I don’t mind Paradox & Mystery – I believe in those things. but I am not going to play that card for an Imperial Lens or Antiquated Construct.

So let me just ask you the question: Do you think that God is really strong and just ‘playing’ weak as “self-limitation” ? So far, this seems to be the line that people are comfortable going to. And I get that. That is the God that I grew up with and preached for 15 years. I know him well. There is built into that ,however, a dichotomy – a binary implication that leads to round and round arguments that last for centuries and show no sign of resolving. ** ( Us – them, either -or, in -out, Calvinist – Arminian, etc.)

I’m not sure that it holds together either philosophically or experientially but – I get it. I get that conception of God and I understand how that God is compatible with our institutions, denominations and structures. I’m not trying to be a ‘stinker’ for the sake of being a stinker. I’m just saying that it makes me nervous that… well. It seems to me as we conceive of God now, that he is far more interested in helping Christians find their keys than he is in stopping child abuse and domestic violence.

Which leads me to my second suggestion:

There seems to be a fascination in Christianity with restoring the order that is symbolized by the 10 Commandments. This is ironic because they represent Mosaic Law and if anyone has read one of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letter to the Galatians, the Hebrews or the Epistle of James you will know that, for the Christian, the Law is … well – to say it kindly – not the fullest expression of God’s desire for his New Covenant community.
The other dominant icon seems to the be the Cross. This is ironic because it is a sign of Roman violence and coercive power and domination. I’m not sure that those who wear gold plated – jewel encrusted icon around their neck have thought of this.

But you have to think: it is more that intriguing that the two universally recognized symbols of Christianity in our age are representative of Mosaic Law and Roman Violence. And while someone my protest and say that I am making too a big of deal our of nothing, the diagnostic seems pretty clear.

Is our expression of Christianity rules based and does it participate in militarized force? Or does is legislate & legalize morality and does it baptize violence in the Name of God?

When people think that the Ten Commandments have anything to do with Christianity… and when they think that the cross is just a means to an end…
it is no wonder to me why they refuse to even engage the Weakness of God.

Here is my suspicion:

If we didn’t learn from Jesus what we were suppose to learn from Jesus then our faith might be more Colonial than Christ, more Caesar than covenant love, more strength than sacrifice and more sword than servant.

So what would I suggest in it’s place? Well, I think that one should be The Bowl & Towel. This represents washing feet and a servant attitude. The second is a hole in the ground. It could represent the hole that was dug in the earth for the cross to be dropped in, the hole in his hands and feet and even the Virgin womb that says ‘may it be unto me as you have said’. It represents receptivity and participation.

I know that they may not be as impressive as the classic icons but neither is our gospel as concern with being impressive as the Imperial view of power that it is replacing.

“The kingdom of God is the rule of weak forces like patience and forgiveness, which, instead of forcibly exacting payment for an offense, release and let go. The kingdom is found whenever war and aggression are met with an offer of peace. The kingdom is a way of living, not in eternity, but in time, a way of living without why, living for the day, like the lilies of the field – figures of weak forces – as opposed to mastering and programming time, calculating the future, containing and managing risk. The kingdom reigns wherever the least and most undesirable are favored while the best and most powerful are put on the defensive. The powerless power of the kingdom prevails whenever the one is preferred to the ninety-nine, whenever one loves one’s enemies and hates one’s father and mother while the world, which believes in power, counsels us to fend off our enemies and keep the circle of kin and kind, of family and friends, fortified and tightly drawn.” – Caputo