Gathered around the table, round two

“What do I still lack?” 

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” Matthew 19:21 

So (see above) people just don’t live that "Love Jesus and read the Bible and do everything He says" so much these days.

For example Alan said that a lot of people these days explain that the early church guys who did what Jesus said, i.e. sold all they had and gave it to the poor not because they were obeying Jesus but because they were mistaken because they thought He was coming right back to get them and so then Paul had to collect offerings on their behalf and that was stupid and embarrassing so we don’t have to obey that commandment any more.

But last night I heard a story about a teaching professor at Rutger University who sold everything he had except for a backpack and an extra shirt and a chess board because he is a ranked Master, and now he sits in Nepalese villages and plays chess with people and talks to them about Jesus.

And there was another story, “the most romantic story ever” of sorts, of this couple who just as they were about to get married, the guy was arrested for being a Christian because they live in China and he got sentenced to ten years and he told her that she was free to marry someone else and she said Never, I will wait for you, even if it is ten years. But it wasn’t because he was having such a huge impact in the prison because of his hymn singing and Bible teaching that the prison official was impressed and kept reducing his sentence and reducing his sentence, and at last chopped it down to one year, but would you mind volunteering to stay one extra year just to help me in the prison? And he did and she did and the prison official became a Christian.  And just about everyone else too. 

And last night Kevin the Iranian and his sweet wife knocked on the door and wanted me to write a job recommendation for her now that she has taken English four times at Pima, and luckily there were already two extra plates at the table set up under the bright orange red purple sunset. And there was Jackson and his friend from Mexico City that he wanted us to meet and Cate with a C who has the best job ever that included toilet papering a house and dressing up like a 50s girl and hanging out at a midcentury trailer show and yesterday she wore a red wig with braids and sang “Somewhere over the rainbow” to a delighted room of Southside second graders. And Yuchang who is always ready for a good conversation. And pots of food and homemade bread and so many stories about how our God is bigger than we think, yes Cameron I am quoting you. 

By the way, Cameron thought that I didn’t love my house because I hate the cockroaches I can’t seem to get rid of, but no I don’t. It is such a wonderful gift house with all of the lights that the uncles and cousins hung and cushions that my mom made and the vine-covered arch that Marco made and even Ali learned how to tile and did the counters for us. And Alan waters the gardens faithfully.

And even though selling all that I have and going to play chess in Nepal sounds like a lovely way to follow Him, maybe I have a different hermeneutics path, and maybe my footsteps have more to do with the “Take eat” way of following, and that is my path to perfect. 

Even as He is perfect.  Which is my perfection. He living in me. Done and sealed. 

Gathered around the table, round one

“What do I still lack?” 

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21

So yesterday, as usual, we gathered together to break bread after the Sunday service. Well, actually, divvy up cheese chicken nachos with lots of extra slices of fresh jalepeños at Bisonwiches. 

And we started talking with a great guy who is committed to bringing the gospel downtown and who is all about urban ministry. But then somehow the conversation twisted into bringing not only the gospel but orthodoxy to the foodie hipsters and drunken college students and wandering artists and musicians and sundry street people and marketed children. And what is orthodoxy, which according to him is being diluted and mingled and is the work of the church to build up. 

If you love Jesus you will read the Bible and do everything He says. 

But (see above) people just don’t do that much these days. Except for the thousands of joyous European youth gathered in Assisi this weekend to celebrate a Pope with a fresh take on an old familiar story. 

And his contention struck a nerve around the table. Is the job of the church to build up Orthodoxy? Or something else? Because I am old and not particularly hipster, my only experience with doctrine has been division and not They shall know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Because sometimes people read the exact same Scripture and yet disagree as to what it means. Which brings us all into the world of hermeneutics, biblical interpretation. The complicated world. Because it is all well and good to set up general guidelines that our understanding must be Simple.  Consistent. Not subjective. And must fall under the big guideline of Jesus: Love God, love your neighbor. But each of us still picks and chooses wantonly until we get tangled up in all of the loose threads and fall to the ground and wonder how this Bible could possibly be God-inspired and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

But all the wandering around hermeneutics websites just makes me a little sad and tired, with the mixture of rather snide little digs to the not-quite-as-Orthodox, unlike swimming a hard 400 meters on Monday morning, which makes me happy and tired. And while there is a great deal of joy in envisioning a redemptive-movement hermeneutic that speaks of a God at restorative work in which we are called by Him to join, it is a different sort of joy than that which bubbles out of Nicole and her Do What Jesus Did love and the Yes, you can quote me God-is-bigger-than-you-think peaceful joy of Cameron, and the simple although a tad weary joy of Mike Birrer who was meditating on God for August, and His Word in September and here it is already October and he still hasn’t picked a theme because he has been pretty busy just loving on Tucson.

Thus I turned to Mr. Jolly G. K. Chesteron and his Orthodoxy tome for a little century-old perspective.

Somehow one must love the world without being worldly. 

And though St. John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits. 

As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heard a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape. Because is has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.

Although very little of it addressed the question at hand, what does He mean when He says, “sell all you have and follow Me,” I felt cheered.    Except for this, framed in the background racket of fiddling politicians, there is one more thought to consider:

The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck.

Perspective is good. Some things never change.

But I am still mulling over what it means to be perfect.