Not sure if I can keep up with another blog.  I'm working on 2 or 3 or more already.  But maybe I'll see what kinds of posts fit here.  In the meantime you're welcome to wander over to my main blog at dualravens and my burgeoning book blog over at itsadance.net.  

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=108

“Whatever’s wrong with society is wrong with me too.”

~Paula Carrigan

Folks in the church leadership like labels. Makes sense of things. So often too such labels make bogeymen out of people, almost enemies of the People, whose addictions and failures and rampant wrong leanings afflicts the noble hearted pastor.

A big one these days is consumerism. Only the biggest consumers I’ve seen are often pastors. Oh, not always with flat screen televisions or vacations to the Bahamas or two jet skis to use at the river twice a summer.

But it’s there. Just scratch the surface. See what they care about. See what they want to satisfy their souls. They consume, pouring out time and money and resources to get it. Only because it’s not the same as the rest of the slobs they can decorate their consumerism in spiritual words or hide their consumerism beneath distracting good deeds. At the same time they judge they wallow unaware in their own accusations.

Did I say they?

Me. Best not to throw stones. Even the ones with ecclesiastic stamps of approval.

http://itsadance.net/perichoresis/2007/11/25/kenosis/

One of the words I play around with in It’s a Dance is kenosis. To be honest I’m a lot more confident about my use of perichoresis. The idea of Trinity and movement and dance and intersection between God and humanity is very visual to me. I see it in my head and then try to get some words around what I’m seeing. It not only is a nice word to use at parties it, for me, brings together in perfect sense all sorts of seemingly disparate aspects of God and church.

Kenosis is still a word I’m trying to understand. Oh, not intellectually. Trying to get my heart and spirit around so that I can dance with it.

Like a few terms in theology this one sounds fancier than it is, and the keeping of the term in another language adds to the mystique. Basically it means ‘emptiness’.

It’s a curious sort of now because it doesn’t seem quite a Christian value. Buddhists believe in emptying. Christians believe in filling. Buddhists pursue a divine nothingness. Christians the fullness of God.

So such a term becomes easy to write off as not being Christian. Only it’s entirely so. Here’s the passage the term comes from:

Philippians 2:1-11 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

This NIV translation makes the key verse into “and made himself nothing.” That’s doesn’t have quite the imagery. The NRSV puts it “but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave”, a translation echoed in the NASB and other translations. Emptied himself. Kenosis. That’s the word in the original Greek translated as empty, or made nothing. But empty is different than ‘made nothing’. Being made nothing contrasts with Creation, in which the nothing was made into something. That’s not the contrast suggested here, however. Rather, being emptied is assuming there’s still something, only it has been gutted, poured out. The container remains. The content changes.

Too often though the theological idea of kenosis has been a Christological conversation. Or in more friendly terms, when the idea of emptying comes up people want to talk about what it meant for Jesus to become a human. Thus, Philippians 2 has been called the Christological hymn, an expression of theology and an cause for articles and arguments.

Only like with Genesis 1 this emphasis on our questions pushes away the primary motivation by the original writer. Paul here wasn’t writing a systematic theology or emphasizing a point for specialists in Philippi to wrestle over. He was writing to a church, for the church, in a way that the church might grow deeper and broader.

He takes what may have been lyrics to an early worship song and returns to the imagery of Christ as the model for the church. The church is the body of Christ, and so Christ’s physical body is a representation of the church. Heavenly in calling, physical and humble in its expression.

Christ emptied himself. So too does Christ empty the church. Making it into the form of a servant, obedient even to death.

Only the church has expressed itself entirely the opposite. It has taken the last part, the part that is fulfilled in Christ in eternity but not yet in this moment. It has taken on the glory and the authority and the power to assert itself onto and into the lives of humanity. Taking the role of a king, the church has reigned.

When I say something like that the image of egregious failures comes to mind. Constantine’s re-ordering of the religious world. Medieval popes, athiests in essence who sought money. The crusades. Missionary exploitation of natives. Tele-evangelists.

The reality is, as a friend of mine wrote, “whatever’s wrong with society is wrong with me too.” Whatever is wrong with the church is wrong with me too.

Kenosis is the way of Christ. Ego is the way of sinful humanity. Kenosis is foolishness to the Greeks. Ego is wisdom and protection and assertion.

The Church reflects human ego. Jesus exemplified kenosis.

Self-protection is the role of the ego. Emptying is the work of Christ.

The ego promises victory and wholeness. Only it can only get us halfway. It demands. It hides. It distracts and it often will even lie. It puts on a show. It makes walls and it makes enemies. It is our anti-Christ. Anti-Christ within each of us.

Kenosis is the Way.

But that is the tricky bit. Not tricky to understand intellectually. I get that. Yay for being emptied so that God can reward me with fullness.

The tricky bit is that being emptied requires being emptied. And that actual reality is almost overwhelmingly emotionally too hard.

Much easier to write good theology and separate the admonition from the practice, pursuing the ego in action while emphasizing kenosis in rhetoric.

Everyone loses but it feels so safe.

Perichoresis comes back into play because in the ideal everyone is emptying and everyone is filling. Kenosis is our divine adhesive, that which creates in us a more profound bond than anything humanly conceived. By exposing my total weakness and pouring out all my self, with my gifts, with my resources, with my being, I over-extend. I fall forward. Only in the Dance someone else is doing the same thing. And another. And another. It becomes a dance not of feet shuffling but of flying. We all leap and catch each other in mid-air. A great circle, rising on the wind.

Sounds lovely. Except for that first part. Being emptied. Denying my ego.

Maybe if someone else did it first…

I’m feeling it this morning and I think the safety of the ego’s shell sounds much more peaceful. Which means while I can talk about kenosis. I don’t get it quite yet. Hopefully others are wrestling with it as well and might share a piece of the puzzle.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=109

Going through some old journals this afternoon and I ran across this prayer I wrote about 5 years ago. I was working at a church. Had lots of plans. God had different plans.

This prayer is still fitting.

May I walk in harmony. May I listen profoundly. May I see perceptively, hope unendingly, believe faithfully, move boldly, trust implicitly, love grandly, share selflessly, think wisely, act confidently, respond humbly, care transformingly, laugh contagiously. May I see Your face, know Your heart, speak Your words. Grant to me this day the bounty of Your presence again. Grant to me life.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=110

Sitting on the couch in the living room I turned and looked out the front door. This woodpecker was bounding down a cedar tree and got himself drink from a bowl of water. Then bounded back up the tree.