100. Risk and Failure

 Man, this dude took a while to drop a jewel in this book, but he finally came through half way through the book. Listen to this piece on the resurrection and culture.

"In accordance with Girards theory of the sacred, cultures were regularly erected over the graves of the slain victims, as they presuppose that the society has reached an inner peace, which spontaneously sets itself up by means of the violent driving out and sacralization. The grave, which covers up the corpse , thus become son the one hand the symbol of that great process of veiling on which every society is based, and on the other the first clearly defined cultural sign, because with it the distinction between sacred and profane is symbolically pinned down: Culture always starts form the grave. The grave is always the first human memorial, which has to be erected over the victim  who has been driven out, the first, most elementary, most fundamental layer of cultural signs. No culture without a grave, no grave without culture. If the sealed grave is really the great symbol of the sacred cultures, insofar as they cover something over, then it is more than an accidental detail that the accounts of Easter in the gospels begin with the narration of the opened grave, in which there is no longer a corpse to be found. ... In a violent conflict, the murdered corpse is the emperical sign there from the very beginning, that there has been a victim and that some one else was the victor. Talk of an Easter victory can not therefore lightly pass by this sign....the opened grave has, against the background of Girards theory, an important symbolic meaning. It shows that the new beginning constituted by Easter reaches so deep that the ultimate foundations of human culture itself, until now veiled, are laid bare" p. 129-130

Another sign pointing us to the fact that we have not even begun to understand the riches and wisdom and depth of the gospel. The incarnation, Ministry, Death, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus are saturated with the mystery of God and the concrete ....everything. WOW! is all I have to say.

I kind of like this presentation from James Choung. It hits a few of the models of atonement, but leaves out the penal-substitution model, which I am not too excited about these days actually :) I think we need to explore and emphasize other models of the atonement, and dive deeper into Christus Victor for example. Can you tell me what model of atonement this guy is alluding to with his presentation? If not, then you probably familiar with only one model of the atonement. This should bother you as there are multiple images and models used in scripture to help us understand what Jesus did.

This is a great picture of what it means to be salt and light in the world. These pictures are from Tel Aviv, an area that has felt the brunt of violence and war. There is a small movement called Dispatchwork where people go around with Legos and patch up the holes and craters in walls and monuments with a colorful mosaic of plastic art. It is a refusal to let the effects of war brand an area with destruction.

They are filling in the wounds and scars of war with a creative, beautiful touch of art. It is a testimony that beauty can emerge after tragedy. This is exactly what Jesus does in our lives.

76. Symbols and the Construction of Community

Revisited a book I read a while back for the book I am working on about Apostolic Leadership. This guy is so thorough in his analysis about how symbols foster, maintain and hold community together, that it is sort of hard to find a good summary quote. Symbols are those clandestine meaning transmitters and they work in such an ambiguous way that when you stop to look more deeply into how they operate and what it is exactly that they do, you begin to see there power and presence on almost every corner. This quote is from Anthony Cohens book The Symbolic Construction of Community.

"Symbols are effective because they are imprecise. Though obviously not content-less, part of their meaning is subjective. They are, therefore, ideal media through which people can speak a 'common' language, behave in apparently similar ways, participate in the 'same' rituals...wear the same clothes and so forth, without subordinating themselves to a tyranny of orthodoxy. Individuality and community are thus reconcilable. Just as the 'common form' of the symbol aggregates the various meanings assigned to it, so the symbolic repertoire of a community aggregates the individualities and other differences found within the community and provides the means for their expression, interpretation, and containment. It provides the range within which individuality is recognizable. It continuously transforms the reality of difference into the appearance of similarity with such efficacy that people can still invest the 'community' with ideological integrity. It unites them in their opposition, both to each other, and to those 'outside.' It thereby constitutes, and gives reality to, the community's boundaries..."

An interesting question to entertain is, how does the symbol of the gospel function in this way? Symbols are fused with meaning by someone. The strength of symbols is that they can store and communicate multiple meanings at once. Their weakness is that meaning can get away from what produced the symbol in the first place. A good example of this would be the cross. Still a vibrant religious symbol in Christianity, it has been emptied of its original meaning and loaded down with centuries of domestication and cultural baggage. The most vivid display of this would be the prosperity gospel which manages to skirt the cross altogether most of the time, bypassing it for a direct line towards the resurrection, giving it a lopsided theology of naked power and naive triumphalism. Weakness and suffering, non-violent resistance and loving sacrifice seem to escape this particular ideology altogether. Instead, the prosperity gospel liquidates the meaning of the cross and shrinks it down to a purely transactional affair to secure personal salvation and forgiveness. It is a side note to the "power" of "abundant living." The current Protestant versions of the gospel have fallen into this same trap. This is quite a downsizing when compared to the massive implications Paul and other writers of the NT draw from this powerful symbol. Joel green and Mark Baker are quick to point out a foundational source of this tragedy in their book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross.
They say that part of the problem is the way in which we construe the human dilemma. Explanations of the solutions offered by the gospel are directly linked to how we understand the problem. Before Christ the human dilemma was understood within a broad spectrum of categories, including, social, physical, political, emotional, and psychological. The spiritual dimension is always present, but at times it is single voice among many. Explanations of the meaning of the cross need to first wrestle with the entire human situation in relation to God, creation and humanity. The fall reaches into every facet of our existence. It only seems right to expect the gospel, as the power of God for salvation, will speak to these categories. In fact it does. The word salvation is a medical term that is akin to the Hebrew version of shalom. Wholeness and harmony are intimately tied to the gospel, yet they are framed by a crucified messiah. A paradox indeed. The critical flaw in the prosperity gospel is that it approaches the human condition outside the framework of a crucified messiah. It is a contemporary version of the Corinthians "realized eschatology" which wants to live as though the new creation is entirely accessible in the here and now. We live between the times. We have experienced the power of the age to come, but the age to come still has yet to fully "come." We live under the sign of the cross, the spirit transporting the power of the new age into our presence, giving us a foretaste of what is to come. We have to acknowledge this tension. New life has begun, but it has infiltrated a cosmos still suffering from the brunt of the fall.

Apostolic leaders must learn how to embed the gospel in ways that reflect its multiple meanings, guarding and preserving its original potency to speak to the human condition in relation to God, people, systems and the creation.

“There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”. But they went on with the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven”, and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated”. They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

“Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

“But judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.” (Dr Martin  Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail...to evangelical pastors April 16, 1963).

King's prophetic message is still current for the church today. Have we learned anything from it in the over 46 years since he first wrote this to the Church? Did we take his message seriously? What do you think about its relevance for today?

The following observations in “Against the Current”, Leadership, Fall 2009 p.15 challenges the popular assumption that everybody needs small groups in order to develop an organic and relationally intimate community. They were made by a couple of pastors talking about their challenges in establishing a multi-ethnic Church in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighbourhood:

Context question: What assumptions do white people carry into [your] church?

Arloa Sutter (pastor of community life): “When I came I said, “Let’s just start small groups! Everybody wants to be in a group, right?” The fact is small groups aren’t as important to other ethnicities as they are to white people”.

Context question: Small groups are a white church thing?

Daniel Hill (Pastor/Church Planter): “White people rely on small groups to connect. Other ethnicities from community more organically, more relationally. Immigrant communities find fellowship within extended families. In a city a lot of community happens on the front porch or sidewalk. So non-whites aren’t as eager to set up structures and systems like small groups”.

Carlos Ruiz (coordinator of community groups): “I think whites really value efficiency”.

Antione Taylor (director of Sunday morning ministries): “And releasing that value is really hard for a lot of them. They perceive other ways of operating as inefficient or disorganized”.

Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko (elder): “They say it’s not the right way to do church. And I respond bluntly by saying: “You mean it’s not the white way to do church”.

What that conversation illustrated to me is that the “one size [system, formula] fits all” premise for building a relationally healthy, nurturing and growth-oriented church doesn’t necessarily work within all cultures.

To me, the issues Hill and Taylor raise also imply that whites (I am also white) value not only efficiency, but also the emotional safety, privacy and comfort, and sense of being more in control that being in a small group tends to provide them. They tend to gravitate toward small groups for those reasons and feel less relationally comfortable within larger community settings which disorientate and challenge them culturally, and are more chaordic by general nature.

However, something Arloa Sutter says later in the conversation I think has some bearing on why larger community gatherings can be just as important as those small ones we may feel so comfortable in:

“We believe that being together is more important than being comfortable”.

 One of the main influences which frequently our choice of the church group to attend is our wanting to be with people we like, who are just like us, and who we want to be just like.

Unfortunately, in the real world it just doesn’t usually work out to be like that.

The reason why is described very ably by Eugene Petersen (2005). Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, p. 226:

“Christ plays in the community of people with whom we live, and we want to get in on the play. We see what Christ does in creation and history and we want in on it firsthand with our families and friends and neighbours. But difficulties arise. Soon[er] or late[er] those of us who follow Jesus find ourselves in the company of men and women also want to get in on it. It doesn’t take us long to realize that many of these fellow volunteers and workers aren’t much to our liking, and some of them we actively dislike – a mixed bag of saints and sinners, the saints sometimes harder to put up with than the sinners. Jesus doesn’t seem to be very discriminating in the children he lets into his kitchen to help with the cooking”.

Community is complex. Being in community in the way Jesus forms it – with so many people from different backgrounds culturally, economically, ethnically, politically and socially – can, and inevitably is very challenging and often poses difficulties for us.

You can observe that throughout Mark’s Gospel in the number of fights which occurred among The Twelve over who would be first once Jesus had departed from them: very factional, rivalries, posturing for status against each other (e.g. Mark 10:35-45). They were all Jewish, but from quite divergent sub-cultural religious, social and political backgrounds. And they fought time and time again with each other about things like religious control, even after the Spirit came upon them all at Pentecost (e.g. Acts 15:1; 15:39; Gal. 1:18-21)

But if we are to honour Scripture and Jesus, we need to accept the fact that there should be no unfair discrimination against others on the basis of gender, race, social or cultural background. Gal. 3:28-29 puts it fairly plainly: “Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham’s family, and you will be given what God promised”. 

Our journey along the Jesus Way was never designed to clone us into a faith community of identical sameness. Our oneness is not about loss of our individuality. But nor is about what Petersen calls “the highly vaunted individualism of our [predominantly Western] culture” (ibid). There is no getting around it, “there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself” (ibid).

To go with Jesus where He goes in mission means being prepared to plunge intentionally into a community of relationships with people of His choice, not necessarily those of our choice. It also means intentionally seeking out and including non-judgementally and in  goodwill those into our table-fellowship those whom Jesus would include in it, rather than running away from or ignoring that call and responsibility in mission and faith community building.

5000 filled Bellies: Magic or Miracle?

I’m not about watering down Jesus’ miracles. Amazing miracles occurred such as the healings of lepers and restorations of sight to the blind, raisings of the dead and so forth in the Gospels. And I believe those were creative miracles – miracles done by the Creator, Jesus Christ. Genuine miracles as far as I am concerned! However, when we read about Jesus’ miracles, I think we also need to read carefully and critically between the lines of what is possibly also being described from within any subtexts underlying those Gospel accounts. Doing so to some extent can demythologize what occurred, but does not render it any less miraculous as significant human-divine spiritual encounter in any event.

Take for instance, the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6.

I once saw a Hollywood movie about this miracle which depicted endless fountains of fish and bread pouring out into the baskets the disciples distributed...what seemed to the film makers at least enough to give dramatic effect  to the impression that it would feed around 5000 people. But that’s not what I think really happened in real history when the feeding of the 5000 occurred.

Jesus was no super-magician or trickster, even if some Christians to day appear to think (mysteriously) that he was. Perhaps that’s why so many so-called miracle-worker charlatans can get away with their trickery and fool thousands of gullible Christians – because those Christians misidentify their magical tricks and illusions for genuine miracles of God?

Instead, I imagine that it happened a bit more like this....

It was getting late, they (the disciples and Jesus) were way out in the country where there were no cafes or shops, and a huge crowd of 5000 followers had followed them to be near to Jesus either to hear him speak, witness a miracle, get healed, or in some other way be exposed to what ever it was he had to offer them.

Overwhelmed by it all, and a bit claustrophobic by being surrounded by so many people – many of them highly needy people probably - the disciples had come to Jesus to do something religiously symbolic to appease the crowd and bring closure to this gathering . Ultimately they wanted to disperse and get rid of the large crowd whom they found rather challenging to deal with. They just wanted to go home. “Enough was enough”, they thought. And, “But how to talk Jesus into it?

The disciples use the `convenient’ excuse that the crowd is getting hungry, they have no food for them, and just enough barely for themselves. Their underlying implication to Jesus is that this hungry crowd will become a highly restless and perhaps hostile crowd if things were allowed to continue the way they were going now. They basically might just as well have told Jesus, “Send them on their way, before things get out of hand”.

So, knowing their hearts, fears and motives, what does Jesus do? He tells the disciples to do something practical and extremely challenging. He asks them what food they have – “Only 5 loaves and 2 fish. Jesus then doesn’t let them cop out with that further excuse, but says: “Feed them with what you have”.  

So presumably somewhat  miffed, and somewhat embarrassed and bemused by Jesus’ reply to them, the disciples then reluctantly offer up whatever food they have for sharing out and then Jesus blesses their food and the intended recipients through a prayer.

There are three keys to understanding this miracle here. 1) Jesus says something, in prayer, to God and presumably in the crowd’s hearing. We don’t know what he said. It simply isn’t recorded. But it seems highly likely that the crowd heard it and it deeply moves them. 2) His disciples decided, under Jesus’ instruction, to offer all the food that they have, however scant it was, to be shared among the massive crowd of people. 3) What wasn’t said, but implied by Jesus’ call for them to share what they had with the others.

I guess they also waited for the inevitable backlash they expected from a highly dissatisfied and still hungry crowd whom they presumed would react angry about the token nature of their offerings to them.

But the disciples got it so wrong (as they seem to do so often in Mark’s Gospel). It resulted in a massive food sharing party, not the angry riot or the mass protest they had come to expect from easily disgruntled Jewish religious crowds.

I think the disciples completely misread the collective attitude of this crowd.

The story goes that they distributed that to the crowd and that none of the crowd went hungry. In fact, once it was all and done and everybody was fed – it says “all ate their fill” - it was enough for all the whole 5000, and there were 12 baskets of left-over food to boot.

Now we are led to believe that by some creative miracle, God some how magnifies those few fishes and loaves into more than enough for 5000 people and more!

And what I believe how we commonly interpret this miracle is quite wrong. I don’t for instance believe God somehow turned the baskets used into fish factories and bakeries which operated like the Tim Tam biscuit packet blessed by some genie from bottle to magically never run out like in the ad we sometimes see on TV.

That’s how I think we often see it. Like Jesus, the penultimate genie in a Gospel (and not in a bottle), chanting something mystical to God to get Him to work some great magician’s trick to make a couple of fish and loaves into thousands. What a great magical feat!

No. I think that’s wrong. That’s not how I interpret this miracle at all.

What I see Jesus doing is using this dire situation – this problem – to challenge the disciples into becoming practical problem solvers.

You see a real need. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to be part of the problem or part of God’s solution to it?

It’s also a test of their faith. Can you trust God enough to somehow do what you cannot possibly do, given your limited resources? Are you prepared at least to give it a go, and to trust in God to somehow help you handle the rest?

Jesus calls upon them to give their all in terms of what food they had. But somehow after he blesses it in a prayer of thanksgiving to God, the food gets somehow multiplied – enough to fill up and satisfy the whole of the 5000, including themselves. How did that happen? What actually happened?

I think we need to look more closely at what Jesus said during his prayer to God, before he distributed the food to the crowd.

Now we need to understand that just because there were 12 baskets of leftovers doesn’t mean there were only 12 baskets circulated among the crowd to distribute the food. I think, given the amount of food that became multiplied, there were probably a great many more baskets going around to make the distribution more workable.

Okay. So where did those baskets come from. Obviously from among the 5000, silly! Surely many of these people came with things like baskets, and uh! Oh! Maybe some food and water themselves? After all, we’re not talking about the whole lot being absolutely incapable of catering adequately for themselves and planning for a days outing. Most of them were adults. And most adults do have a capacity to think ahead when it comes to travelling away from shops, home etc. when it comes to packing a picnic lunch or evening supper.

Yep. The disciples said the 5000 had no food. But I don’t think they were really all that interested in canvassing the crowd to find out what they really did have. They just assumed that. It was a very convenient excuse to bring to Jesus because they were intimidated by the crowd and how it may look to the spies of the Jewish and Roman authorities, and they really just wanted Jesus to disperse them promptly before something controversial happened which upset the governing religious and political powers operating locally.

The real miracle that happened I think was one of changing hearts.

It happened when under Jesus’ leadership the disciples were helped to face their fears by sticking with it and ministering practically to the crowd.

Jesus put them, and Himself, on a spot.

Jesus as their leader tells them to give everything they have to meet the crowd’s practical need. That means giving away all their food. Given the remote situation, that took an act of trust in Jesus, and his ability to supply all their needs. It was also a costly act of self-sacrifice and a great demonstration of generosity.

By taking it up and asking God to bless the food in prayer, Jesus takes on the responsibility as a leader for what is to come. The crowd would have focused heavily on what he said to God and on behalf them as participants in that prayer.

Now we don’t know what Jesus said. It is not recorded in the Mark 6 text. But let’s presume that probably what the disciples decided and did, followed by what Jesus said in his prayer of blessing about them and the food, had a significant impact on what the crowd did in response. Then let’s presume that, as a result of what they saw and heard mentored to them by generosity of the disciples and by what they heard of the good-heartedness of Jesus toward them, that their hearts were profoundly touched to the core. They were moved to the core by Jesus’ gracious words to God made on their behalf. They were also amazed at His disciples’ radical generosity.  Moved of heart so much so, that all thoughts of selfishness for so many there were somehow now miraculously turned in another direction – that of newfound generosity and goodwill toward the others in the crowd. Transformed of heart so much by Jesus’ prayer and the disciples’ example of costly selflessness that now they  too wanted to offer all their previously `privately owned’ food  brought along with them to just sustain them for the day, onto the `table of fellowship’ to share now with the everyone else. We don’t know if it was all who had this significant change of heart, but it appears that for so much food to be shared that most would realistically been involved. In any case, no one went away hungry. All were fed well. The Gospel says that many were in fact full after eating the meal. It was what appears to have been what could be fairly described as “a pretty hearty meal”.

Following the disciples’ and Jesus’ example, and moved by Jesus’ heartfelt prayer of blessing for them to God, the crowd – presumably made up before of individuals just there to get what they could for themselves without a care at all for the rest – had a turning of heart in another direction – they now decided to care for everyone else enough to share their valuable food with the others who were hungry or who had nothing. That is a radical change! That’s what is not typical in any society – particularly this notoriously selfish culture throughout recent history.

Okay. So where is the real miracle? I think you have to read between the lines of the story to discover where it is. And the real miracle is the hidden one which is found there. It is what happened in the changing of hearts in this story, and not in the filling up of bellies that the actual miracle is found.

It also raises the possibility that even with the little we have, a lot can be achieved.

We might not reasonably be expected to feed the whole of the starving world. But through our example of giving generously to alleviate hunger, many will be inspired to join up with us to do that. Every little bit counts. Just because the world’s problems are so big, doesn’t excuse us from standing back and doing nothing about, or just passing on the problem to someone else `out there’ to miraculously somehow turn up and do what we should have in doing our part practically in being utilised as God’s answer to our prayers concerning social problems, however small our contribution may be. Big problems are generally solved by many do little bits out of generosity and goodwill, which combined address the whole more substantially. But it’s all got to start somewhere. And that’s where we as individuals and groups of disciples need to lead the others to begin doing it through setting good examples.

What I believe we need to do today is to explore the story behind the story... to read between the lines and ask relevant questions that probe for deeper underlying truths... to understand contextual realities... to learn the real lessons from it, and to then practice the underlying miracle – that of choosing from our hearts to respond to Jesus’ call to go in a new, and in fact, His direction, which necessarily involves trusting Him in His faithfulness and love toward us, and in decisively and prayerfully going forward along His Way in responding to life’s ever-presenting challenges.

Andrew Park

(2009-09-19)

Been Reading Morgan Gareth's book Images of Organization. One of his chapters is entitled Organizations as Psychic Prisons. I was immediately all ears on this one. Check out this quote: