Wed 3 Dec, 2008
Here are two books that you really should read simultaneously to get the full impact. Both were published in 2008. Both are about incarnational moments in real living. Both present the Gospel as a combination of grit and hope … or as I sometimes say in workshops, each book seeks to provide desperate people with one good reason not to commit suicide tonight. Good Christmas reading.
Jim Walker from Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community wrote Dirty Word: The Vulgar, Offensive Language of the Kingdom of God (UMC Discipleship Resources). The essence of the book is in a chart on page 78. Our “deep needs” for assurance, belonging, meaning, and identity … are caused by the “four curses” of fear, rejection, luxury, and superficiality … and cured by the “Koinonia” of communion, community, compassion, and word … so that we find “salvation” through abiding (John 15), belonging (Luke 19), loving (Mathew 25), and truth (John 3:16). There. That’s the book. The other 256 pages are an extended footnote.
But what a footnote! This book helps you understand why church planting is not a curriculum, why so many mission-driven pastors are getting fed up with the established church, why so many Christians are getting fed up with pastors who only gripe about the established church and do nothing, and why so many seekers age 18-35 really are interested in Jesus. Jim Walker explores the meaning of “koinonia” in fresh and faithful ways.
The great irony in this book is that once past some of the surprising, gritty, and deliberately edgy terminology, Jim reverts to some remarkably abstract theological terminology. I suspect it might be lost on many veteran church members … who might in turn scoff that the realtime young seekers Jim’s church reaches will be turned away by theological language. That’s why the end of the book is equally surprising. Jim outlines the “Hot Metal Apprenticeship Program” as an afterthought (I think), but it was a good idea. Veteran churchy people who balk at basic Bible study will be shocked that these earnest seekers would do a 9-month experience of such theological intensity.
Meanwhile, Tex Sample released EarthyMysticism (Abingdon Press). These are personal reflections to describe mystical experiences in real life. These incarnational experiences are definitively not intellectual rationalizations. Sometimes they are occasions of great joy and fulfillment, and sometimes of great pain and emptiness, and sometimes of profound ambiguity that anticipates a clarity that is not yet. But they are all experiences when the infinite and finite connect and Tex is left in radical humility before God. This is mysticism, not “misty living”. It is not about walking in a comfortable fog, but about touching the Holy.
My favorite quote is in the preface as Tex recalls his surprising call into ministry: “I absolutely hated the idea of doing such a thing … I later learned, however, that the call to go into ministry is a lot like throwing up. You can put it off for awhile, but there comes a time when you have to do it.” The quote put me in mind of Jim’s “dirty word … the vulgar, offensive language of the Kingdom of God”. Only Tex wasn’t talking about language, but about God’s offensive, impolite, and inconvenient ways of working in the world.
The great irony about this book is that once past some of the poetic, mystical references to “the hush in the presence of the unspeakable, the awe-struck before the ineffable”, Tex reverts to simple, compelling story telling. I suspect this, too, might be lost on many veteran church members … who might scoff that the young academics Tex has mentored will be turned away by stories of the miraculous. His postscript is profound. What is theology, after all, but a humble attempt to explain what happens when God “shows up” in the midst of life?
Both books make a similar point. Perhaps this December we can replace the “theology of skepticism” which epitomizes the real doctrine of most established churches of modernity, with the real presence of Christ.
Tom Bandy
