Carlos

Yesterday morning started off no different than most other days. Since I didn’t have a job for the day I figured I would head down to Starbucks after I completed my carpool obligation for the day. I sat in one of the comfy chairs with my cup of Pike Place Roast in my hand and began conversing with my friend Mike about crucial matters such as airline fees and hockey scores. A man, possibly homeless, had been sitting next to us and had fallen asleep for a few minutes. Little did I know that this man would end up changing my day.

About five or ten minutes into our conversation the man looked up toward us and began talking to us with an apology. “Excuse me for interrupting, but I heard you talking about God, and I’m… I’m… I’m just so hungry…” And he began to weep. He looked clean, he was freshly shaven, his clothing was in good shape; I wondered if he was homeless. I asked him his name; he said “Carlos”. I looked in my wallet and saw that I had three one dollar bills and a twenty. Mike (other Mike) had five ones, so between us we gave him eight bucks.

Carlos took the money, rather sheepishly. I asked him if he was looking for work; he said “Yes”. “I worked for a guy for three hours on Saturday…” Then he held out his left hand to us. “Look at my hand, I can hardly use it.” On the back of his hand, where his thumb connects to it, there was a disfigurement. “I used to be a barber…” He began to weep again. “For twenty six years I was a barber… now I can’t work.” I asked him if he lives in our area. He looked down at the ground and slowly shook his head; “I am homeless”. After asking him a few more questions I was pretty sure that Carlos was being truthful to us. My next thoughts were about what can I do for this guy? Or, what should I do for him? Eight bucks surely won’t change anything.

I have a friend, who is well connected with Set Free Ministries, but they usually work with guys coming off of drugs or out of jail out at their ranch, and Carlos didn’t seem to be that type. I told Carlos that I had a friend that worked with a ministry that helped out men and asked if that was something he would be interested in. His countenance changed 100 percent and he began to smile. “You would do something like that for me? Why would you do that?” My heart sank a little right then for Carlos… What caused this man to have so little self-worth? What has his life been like for the last three years, since his injury, to cause him to think that I was doing that I was doing such a “great” thing for him? Had nobody ever offered to help him?

I suggested that Carlos go over to BK and get something to eat while I contact my friend. I called Don O. and asked him if Set Free would be a fit for Carlos. Don said yes, that it would be a fit and that they would take him, but to ask Carlos to be sure that he wanted to do it. When Carlos returned he had not bought anything to eat. I asked him what was up. “Eight dollars… is a lot… I have to think about this… how I am going to use it… I could use it for two or three days…” I began to understand that if Carlos went to the store, he could buy bread, etc. and get much more mileage out of the eight bucks than if he bought one-dollar burgers. More importantly, I began to appreciate his dilemma even more. I asked him if he wanted me to take him to Set Free, he said “yes”.

Now, I’ve never done anything like this before. Once a guy came to my church, and told me that he wanted help getting off drugs. I called Don, handed the phone to the guy, and within 20 minutes the guy and Don left for the Ranch. This was different; I had been conversing with Carlos for over an hour. And Don could not pick him up! I was still a bit apprehensive about driving with this stranger (homeless stranger) by myself in my car. “Who can drive with me out there?” I thought. After calling every member of the staff at our church and three other potential guys and getting nowhere I decided that I would need to take him out myself. I called Don and told him that I was on my way. He said that he would call them and let them know I was coming.

As we got into the car and headed down the road he asked me again “why do you want to do this for me?” I answered, “Because you are important Carlos... You matter… And, you matter to the Lord.” We spoke about many things on our drive, about his brother dying a couple of years ago, about a sister who doesn’t want anything to do with him, and about his sixteen year old son who lives in San Francisco. When we got off the freeway he told me “I can’t do this.” I told him he could. “No, I can’t” he replied. “Well, we drove all the way out here; we might as well meet these people before we make a decision” (whew, quick thinking Mike). “I am scared”, I told him that I would be afraid too. “I feel sick”, “like butterflies?” I said. “Yeah.”

As we pulled into the church parking lot he expressed his apprehension once again. I asked two guys where I could find “Johnny”, and they pointed to him. Carlos had not yet opened the door to get out of the van. I walked over to the van and opened the door and said “Let’s go meet these people.” Carlos got out and we walked over and met Johnny. Johnny asked Carlos a few questions then said “We need to get you some rest, and then something to eat.” Carlos, looking at the ground, nodded. “You’re in the right place” Johnny told him; Carlos nodded. I shook Johnny’s hand and thanked him, turned toward Carlos, who stepped toward me and hugged me, and we said goodbye. I walked over to our van and headed back to Orange County.

When I arrived back in Brea it was already 2:30 pm. Four hours had passed since Carlos first mustered up the nerve to speak of his hunger to us. I had spent three dollars, and maybe ten bucks for gas, not really much of an investment. I was able to speak words of life to him; words saying that he mattered, that he is important, and that he can achieve the things he wants to-including seeing his son again. I hope that Carlos will find all the things he needs to get his life back on track. I hope that he finds a relationship with God. I am glad that I was in the right place at the right time.

A New Kind of Christianity: The Second Question

OK, so it’s been over three weeks since I have blogged about A New Kind of Christianity. If anyone has lost sleep, anxiously waiting what I would say next: 1) I apologize. 2) Please seek professional help.

McLaren’s second question is The Authority Question. Specifically “How Should the Bible Be Understood?” McLaren begins his exploration of this question by discussing some of the problems fundamentalism has had with its practices concerning the Bible. McLaren uses, as a prime example, the pro slavery argument of the 18th century as an example of how some will misuse the scriptures to make a political or personal point. He concludes that ‘very few Christians today, in my experience anyway, have given a second thought to – much less repented of – this habitual, conventional way of reading and interpreting the Bible that allowed slavery, anti-Semitism, apartheid, chauvinism, environmental plundering, prejudice against gay people, and other injustices to be legitimized and defended for so long’ (76).

McLaren progresses to examine the root cause of the above mentioned problems. He believes that we (US Christians) have been taught to read the Bible as a “legal constitution.” This leads us down the path of believing that the Bible was written with the specific reason for establishing rules and precedents for belief and behavior. (The point McLaren makes here reminds me of reading Erwin McManus, when he speaks of our faith not being all about “sin management”.) McLaren argues that this is simply a distortion of the nature of the text. “Whatever the Bible is, it is simply not a constitution… it is actually ‘something far more interesting and important: it’s the library of a culture and community – the culture and community of people who trace their history back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (81). He continues saying: “A culture, then, is a group of people who say different things about the same things. They propose a variety of answers to the same questions…”seen this way, the Bible would be expected to contain the very opposite of the internal consistency we require in a constitution…”(82) McLaren then adds a very interesting quote from a friend of his: “The Bible isn’t meant to be read.” (McLaren suggests, as do I, that we should ponder that statement for a moment before moving on). “What he is saying is that the Bible is meant to be heard.”

In the third part of his response to the authority question McLaren explores the conversational model of divine revelation. He suggests that the book of Job ‘provides an excellent case study in approaching the Bible in a postconstitutional way’ (87) – in effect, a model for biblical revelation as a whole. McLaren claims: “I can conclude that neither Deuteronomy nor Job speaks nonsense, but rather we speak nonsense when we practice verse snatching from Deuteronomy, the middle of Job, or anywhere else. Why? Because revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities…” (90)

Yes, with out a doubt McLaren will be accused heresy once again. I think that he goes a bit overboard with his example of pro-slavery Northern American Fundamentalists. I think he is spot on to bring into light to the truth that the Bible is a problematic text in the postmodern world. He is also right to argue that some new way of reading is necessary if Christianity is to have a viable future. I have long thought that the idea of the Bible being an answer book for all of life’s problems was quite flawed; After reading these chapters from McLaren my resolve is only stronger.

Judging, Splinters, Logs, and Pharisees

It has been about three weeks since my last blog, which means that I have been working (yay), and busy with school and travel (btw McLaren takes time to digest). Nonetheless, I do have something that I'd like to share...

I remember when I was thirteen years old going to see the movie The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training. This was a particularly memorable occasion because I went to the movie with my friends and without any adults. The film (term used loosely) wasn’t very memorable, or very good; Nevertheless, I do have one lasting impression in my mind. Something that only an immature thirteen year old could cherish and has remained etched in my memory for far too long.

The scene has plagued my mind for nearly thirty-three years comes from the beginning of the movie when the team’s new coach, Mr. Manning, is lecturing them. What happens is the coach pulls out a piece of chalk and writes the word “assume” on the chalk board, he then divides the word into three parts like this “ass/u/me” and utters the famous proverb “Never assume anything! Because, you end up making an ass out of you or me!”

Last Friday my wife received a somewhat concerning text message from a concerned parent/friend. Yvonne, deeply concernedherself  over the content of the message, immediately called the other parent to discuss the message. When Yvonne spoke with the other person it was reported to her that our 16 year old daughter had been ditching class, and drinking. “The entire band knows it” we were told… When Yvonne told me my first thought was “where does she get it?” I remember being sixteen or seventeen and knowing which liquor store to hang out near that gave us the best chance to score a six pack-usually from a male, most likely driving a truck or muscle car, certainly wearing a moustache…

Upon further review, and after the initial shock, we discussed the matter and were not convinced that our daughter was a real candidate for such misdemeanors. We decided to call the reporter back and ask the all important questions: “has anyone seen her do such things?” and “or, does she come to class with alcohol on her breath?” “No” was the answer, “but she brags about it to so and so… And, she really disses on you two… my son told me” (Yes, we were knee deep in high school rumor-ville).

The short version of the long story is that our daughter does have a friend, who drinks a little, but she does not; Her “ditching classes” are actually times when her teachers have allowed her out of class; and her disrespectful talk was the retelling of a family conflict to another friend in which the reporting son of hers only heard half of the story.

Yesterday our daughter asked this “concerned parent” if she would be interested in sponsoring her for her drum corps tour this summer. The response to our daughter read: “I believe u need to focus on ur life & relationship w/ the Lord right now, so , no, I can’t support anything that will distract from that.”

Nuff said???

A New Kind of Christianity: the first question

Last time I blogged I wrote that I would be commenting on Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and the ten questions raised in the book… So, here I go!

The first question McLaren raises is: The narrative question: What is the overarching story of the Bible? I like this question because it is such an important topic of discussion for the 21st century. For too long many in the church (and many not in the church) have treated the Bible as a book of do’s and don’ts, or as a manual of “how to do this or that”-which has never sat well with me.

The first thing that McLaren establishes is his interpretation of what the modern day gospel has become over the centuries. The traditional plot, McLaren suggests, has six elements: 1) humanity begins in the perfect condition of Eden; 2) humanity has fallen from that perfection into 3) a state of condemnation; 4) salvation provides an escape from condemnation to 5) eternal life; 6) but many, if not most, will experience ‘eternal conscious torment’ in hell. McLaren states that this pattern is not entirely Biblical. Rather, it is a combination of the Jewish narrative to fit into a Platonic model, which he gives good support for.

McLaren moves forward into a section he calls “Setting the Stage for Biblical Narrative.” He suggests a forward-looking approach to the story of Jesus, rather than a backward-looking approach through the lenses of church leaders such as Aquinas, Luther, Wesley, Billy Graham, etc. The Biblical narrative begins in Genesis with a “good” Eden, rather than the “perfect” creation inspired by Plato (see The Story We Find Ourselves In). The story follows the ups and downs of the humanity, and God’s continual interaction for the good of His people. A new paradigm comes along when Abram is called to become a notion to bless all the nations, as a culmination of all that has occurred thus far.

The story progresses into Exodus where McLaren states “the (second) narrative situates us in humanity’s oppressive, resistant world in which God is active as liberator – freeing us from external and internal oppression and forming us as the people of God”. The narrative moves forward to a “promised time” - a day of the Lord, “when oppressors will be overthrown, when corruption and infidelity will be replaced by virtue and integrity, and when blessing, justice, and shalom of God flow like a river and fill the earth as waters fill the oceans.”

Here one needs to “proceed with caution”- understanding that McLaren’s passion for social transformation, social justice, etc. might give the impression that he is solely seeking for changes in society; Likewise my passions might seem to advocate missions as the only way to change our world, so grace is given. McLaren cites passages from the Old Testament extensively as to illustrate that it is God’s liberated people who are to change the world for the better. He makes it clear enough here that the vision of social transformation, of a peaceable kingdom, is given to the people of God, and intended not as a certain historical outcome, rather a guiding principle – ‘an unquenchable dream that inspires us to unceasing constructive action’.

McLaren’s “overarching” story seems to omit the person of Jesus… Since question four is dedicated to Jesus I will withhold criticism until then.