Here’s my deal: I believe that God is more about love than he is about rules. Sometimes I let that come across as an anything goes, do what you want, God wouldn’t send you to hell philosophy. I don’t know if that’s true or not. In fact it’s the not knowing that’s the key for me on this. I don’t believe that we CAN know how God will handle those people that don’t know “what would Jesus do.”  I’m at odds (not necessarily AGAINST) “In vs Out” theology – the idea that some people are in, some people are out, and that we can use scripture to figure this out.  It doesn’t pan out for me.

We have at least two responses to this “In vs Out” concept:

The first is commendable: pursuing the “truth” of the matter – delve into scripture, find the things that we should do and those that we shouldn’t do.  The pursuit shows a deep level of love by those people that believe in God to find out more about him. Further, we assume this shows a great deal of love for others because we say we want to help them know God and get “in.” We use the Bible as a starting point, believing it is at least a mostly accurate recounting of history and fact about God. The church has come to call this pursuit “theology” and grants great privileges to those versed in it. Theologians have great respect for longing after the truth for the truth shall set us free.

But the fact that we have called it commendable does not mean that its findings are “truth.” in this case I’m thinking about truth as the way that God wanted things to be in both the world and how we relate to each other.  The truth here reflects our role as Jesus followers.  I’m not convinced that this is how we should be spending our time on this matter.

We’re a curious species and the pursuit of knowledge has become the modern representation of that curiosity. We assume, falsely, that there is nothing that we cannot “know.” We don’t even entertain the idea that there are somethings that we SHOULD NOT know.  I argue that this very matter is something that we will not know and probably SHOULD NOT know.

Instead, it should be completely irrelevant.

The second response then is simply to realize the irrelevance of the question “Is this person ‘in’ or ‘out’?”  It consistently leads to questions and debate about nit-picky issues that are of no relevance to Jesus. You are and will always be loved by God – there are no degrees to this love, no chances to level up.  You simply are.  And so, we need to simply love.  Simply build relationships.  Simply go to the short man’s house for tea.

What does it matter if this person is in, or out, or used to be in, or was out but thought about getting in later?  How does it change how I act towards them.  Yes, I want them to know God, but I don’t want them to know man made God – I want them to know all loving God.  How do I do that?  Simply by loving them myself – by simply being in a meaningful relationship with them.  Nothing more.  The rest – the guilt that’s associated with not helping someone get in, the thinking of people as projects, the endless pursuit of something we cannot and should not know – is nothing but a distraction in the periphery of what real life and love really is.

I hope that we can humble ourselves, realize that our role is not to be judge, jury, or excommunicator.  Our role is to be lovers, and friends.  To do justly.  To love mercy.  To walk Humbly with God.

On the particular day, Matt O’Neil was speaking during the “Blind Spot” series – and focused on the blind spot of “not learning.” When we started, I really had no idea where that was going – but I stayed tuned in.

It turned out to be incredible.

He began by talking about Cornelius: a Roman Soldier, a devout gentile who had conversations with God. To those of us who believe that there is a God who wants to have conversation with us, this seems completely reasonable. To a first century Jew like Peter, a ROMAN SOLDIER GENTILE is exactly the type of person that God would NOT want to talk to. It was completely earth shattering that this would be the case.

At about the same time that we see Cornelius get introduced, we flash to Peter who has a vision of God telling him to eat non-kosher food that good jews had been told for thousands of years to avoid – to never eat under threat of random penalties. Instead God says this:

What I have cleansed, you must not call “unclean”

This was earth-shattering.

Even more earth-shattering…. Cornelius wants to be baptized. As unclean of a man as a gentile, Roman soldier was, Cornelius felt as though it was right for him to be baptized.

This seemingly innocent “conversion” is a turning point in annuls of history and most of us miss it’s significance. What God has made clean, we must NOT call “unclean.”

The question was asked of Peter: “Is there any reason why this man should NOT be baptized?”

We haphazardly declare that people of various faiths, or histories, or criminal backgrounds, or sexual orientations are not clean, are not “ready” for God because they’re hanging on to some “unclean” aspect of their lives. But these are based on OUR standards. WE call them unclean. God calls them beloved and perfect children.

God asked us to unlearn the rule book several times. Jesus said to love him and love each other and we’re covered. But we in our modern mindsets we are driven by data and rules and a concreteness that form the antitheses of loving relationships. In trying to follow the first of the two updated rules that Jesus gave us, we constantly break the second.

Peter was challenged by God to unlearn the rule book. He did it. Now we reinforce it. We have communities of people that seem to thrive on rules because of the tangibility that it provides. The more we follow the rules, the more we think we can gauge the likelihood of us escaping hell. We monitor ourselves relative to each other in much the same way that when running from a bear, we don’t need to be the fastest, we just can’t be the slowest.

Nothing that God has made is unclean.

I have written in my Moleskine that “This is THE profound truth that so many of us in the church miss.” What I found to be completely telling after letting this profound truth sink in was the thought that God did not make the church.

Man made the church.

The church can therefore be unclean. It almost certainly is.

We treat so many people as if they’re second class members of God’s family because they don’t have it together according to our standards.

We made the standards.

It may be that I’m a heretic. I’ve asked myself several times in the past two weeks how it can be that with the rise and fall of so many devoted church communities we have missed this profound truth? Perhaps I’m spewing theological garbage.

But I can’t resolve that the Jesus who befriended criminals on the cross, ate with tax collectors, willingly touched all kinds of lawfully “unclean” folks without any preconceptions or further requirements, would want us to do anything different than to love.

Love. Plain. Simple.

It so easy to see the rules and think that God has burdened us with following them rather than to live in the freedom that He has granted to us from worrying about them.

Our love validates. Our love embraces. Our love is all-encompassing.

Why? Why on earth would God do this? Why would he love criminals and cheaters and the corrupt and the greedy? Why does this make sense to Him?

In the final exclamation point on this incredible message, Matt finished his prayer with thanks to God that “There is NO why.”

His love simply is.

Someday I’ll fly
Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be so damn much more
Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for

After listening to the thoughts of Desmond Tutu from my last post, I imagine God to still be inspiring writers to write profound thoughts that someday will be canonized into The Bible II.  The prophet John Mayer has spoken.

Desmond Tutu said this during a portion of a recent interview that dealt with his good friend, the Dalai Lama:

“Do you really think that God would say, ‘Dalai Lama, you really are a great guy, man.  What a shame you’re not a Christian.’  I somehow don’t think so.  I think God is just thrilled because no faith, not even the Christian faith, can ever encompass God or be able to communicate who God is.  Only God can do that.”

This flies directly in the face of what traditional theology teaches.  How many times have you heard, “No one may come to the Father, except through me,” which implies you have to come experience the Jesus that this brand of church is promoting before you can graduate to some distant heaven far away in the clouds.  In church we are taught about love and grace and mercy which flows from God in heaven – God IS love, after all – and yet when we see these traits in people who aren’t traditional God-heads, we puzzle as to how non-Christians can experience and show these traits.

Perhaps God is bigger than we, “his body”, give him credit for.

It’s human to want to compartmentalize – and put concepts in neatly and clearly defined mental boxes.  God is bigger than our mental boxes.  It’s tempting to think of God in terms of metaphor to put his character in terms of something that we can understand, but the problem here is that every metaphor quickly breaks down.

God is big.

But how to we reconcile the words of a book that says “no man comes to the father except though me” with a spirit and an understanding of Jesus that is so loving that he wouldn’t see anyone not be part of the family.

We’ve got one mechanism – it’s our choice.  Our go-to default position on this has been – “it’s a gift that is freely offered” and you’re stupid, dead, ignorant, irrational NOT to take it.  This functions, but doesn’t remove some of the callousness – God throwing his hands up and saying “The ball is in YOUR court – I’ve done all I can do.”

We sometimes tack on that not “accepting God’s gift” makes baby Jesus cry to handle this.

But, maybe, we’re starting in the wrong place – maybe we’re reading too much into the english translation of greek words that were written thousands of years ago. Perhaps instead of reading that Jesus is the only door that leads to the father so if you don’t accept his love prepare for eternal damnation we should read Jesus is the way through eternity and He has revealed himself to so many people in so many ways that everyone can have access.

It’s a much different interpretation that resolves the “only through me issue.”

You can’t own God.  But the Christian church (and to be fair, all of our faiths) have staked their claim.  My God does this.  You (lower-case g) god doesn’t.  We’re trying to contain the uncontainable.

Sure, this is heretical – I understand.  But how much more like Christ would it be to drop the us-and-them mentality, the “homosexuality is an abomination” approach to life, the drive for pious perfections and simply replace bad circumstances with good circumstances, and to replace good circumstances with better circumstances?

It is utterly irrelevant to me if when I die I was right or wrong.  I don’t care what heaven is like.  I’m OK with Zen-like questions surrounding my Christian faith.  I don’t need answers.  What I need is to express faith in practical ways by being friendly, sharing food, washing cars, giving money, hugging, and relating to people in completely unconditional terms.  I am motivated by a belief that we’re all created in the image of God and that your soul and mind and strength are equally as valid as my soul, and mind, and strength.

He’s bigger than His body gives him credit for.

“This is not language, this is the way people think.”
George Lakoff

There is no way that I possess any authority to say that as a culture we are obsessed with conflict and war and combat. What I have heard, and have seen, and am probably too keenly aware of have colored and/or tainted my thoughts on what I’m about to share. I have a lot of thoughts on this so my plan is to lay some foundation and the dig in with some meat a little later. We’ll see how that goes.

Since my college days, having spent many an evening lying on the floor by the fireplace reading about personality and ego and cognition, I’ve been captivated by all things unconscious. In particular, I have a fascination with our words and our figures of speech, our entire lexicon and the way that we choose (or often don’t choose) to describe people and places and things.

There is so much that you can learn about a culture just by studying words. Cultures that live in the isolated north and understand the cold and ice and snow have many more words for describing these things; they can say in one word what we might say as “light, fluffy snow falling in large flakes.” Understanding snow and weather conditions are critically important to their survival. I would be willing to be however, they have fewer words for money than we do, but more on that later.

For those of you that follow Rob Bell, you may have heard him make reference to something similar in a Nooma Video (002 – Flame) when he talks about love. Bell says that he loves his wife and also loves tacos. For the record, I completely relate; the best is when my wife and I get to eat together at Taqueria Mexico on South Blvd (much like we did today). In essence, Bell says that the words we use can provide great insight into internal processes and thoughts and feelings.

In reading another author (Don Miller, Blue like Jazz), I got reminded of a train of thought I started to have a number of years ago. Miller references the use of metaphor in various parts of our life – one example: the use of war metaphor with respect to dealing with cancer. These thoughts were presented by a professor at an alumni group gathering and Miller was captivated. The essence of the discussion as it was described was that we often use war-centric words when discussing cancer: we battle cancer, we combat cancer, we fight it. This implied conflict has actually been shown to make the process of dealing with cancer more difficult as it induces more stress in patients. The professor argued that it makes the emotional response more intense than it need be and people often forget the fact that the majority of people survive the disease.

As a caveat here, no one is saying that cancer ought not to be treated seriously, only that the metaphor we have come to use to convey the weight of this disease carries with it collateral baggage and that it would be nice if a more appropriate and helpful metaphor could take it’s place.

War metaphor is everywhere. Back to the cancer example, the British Medical Journal wrote about the War Against Cancer in 1934. It is all over science where we here about “invading species”, “biosecurity”, “killer cells”, and “methods for attacking viruses.” We hear it in sports when “epic battles” or “showdown of the century” are scheduled as pay-per-view events. Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney, and the gang quickly turned what was first referred to as a crime on 9/11 into a declaration of war and the ensuing 9 years have been framed as such ever since.

An author that I am quickly becoming interested in, thanks to my newfound interest in linguistics is George Lakoff, an expert on all things language (two books are on the way as I write – I’m sure I’ll have some follow up, providing I can find the time to read them).

He wrote an incredibly compelling article just 5 days after 9/11.

As a child in New Jersey, the NY city skyline was a major part of his life and as a cognitive linguist he finds deep meaning in the words that we use as individuals an culture to describe both the buildings and the events that took them down and he can describe the physical, neural circuitry that undergirds this meaning.

The article as a whole, though obviously biased politically, is incredibly insightful. Click here for a long, but really good, read.

Lakoff does say that the Administration searched for metaphors to help them understand this event – the first response was that of framing the event as a crime, which connects to various parts of our consciousness as involving criminals, justice, courts, lawyers, innocence/guilt. Hours later though, the event was reframed as an act of war, which brings it’s own imagery: “casualties”, “enemies”, “military action”.

What I don’t want to do here is turn this into a commentary about the response to 9/11. The implications pointed out in this article with respect to war metaphor are what really interests me as we’ll need them to frame some later discussion.

War implies good and evil, correct and incorrect, right and wrong. It is only evil that can “justify” the expense, the collateral damage, the death that is associated with war. Lakoff says this:

If our enemy is evil, we are inherently good. Good is our essential nature and what we do in the battle against evil is good. Good and evil are locked in a battle, which is conceptualized metaphorically as a physical fight in which the stronger wins. Only superior strength can defeat evil, and only a show of strength can keep evil at bay. Not to show overwhelming strength is immoral, since it will induce evildoers to perform more evil deeds because they’ll think they can get away with it … Nothing is more important than the battle of good against evil …

My two cents here is that “war” is the ultimate polarizer. We can come to the table to discuss if we are any closer but war occurs when two factions helplessly diametrically opposed to one another.

Lakoff goes on to suggest that if we operate outside of this good and evil paradigm there are many facets to any issue and that invoking war metaphor stations us to think in terms or either/or.

Now would be a good time to stop and breathe.

*inhale*

*exhale*

There are times when the use of war metaphor is appropriate and times when its use has unfortunate results. At RealitySandwich.com you can read about several such instances that are in the latter category. For example, one “invading” blackberry (oooooh, scary) was held responsible for hurting a Californian bird population. Scientists argue that war metaphor causes us to think in terms of eradication instead of exploring more helpful symbiotic relationships. In fact, some even say that this is why a former president decided to merge the government department responsible for “invasive species” into the department of homeland security.

So what do we know?

War metaphor is prevalent. It’s sometimes appropriate; other times, it’s not. When it’s used, our culture, our neurons, our experience, our relationships all contribute to the way that we frame the situation at hand. We have a conscious awareness of what war means but, perhaps more profoundly, we have a deeply-seeded unconscious understanding as well that invokes imagery of good and evil, justification, victory, defeat, and collateral damage.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations …. or I’m sorry.

Here is where I’m really interested in going with this next. I grew up in a church whose very structure and existence was built around the concept of war metaphor, the ultimate in good versus evil, God vs. Satan, sinfulness vs. righteousness. I understand the mechanism by which our churches arrive at war metaphor, and I’m really interested as to whether or not the church is an appropriate home for these concepts of war – that’s up next.

I’ve been religious at various points in my life in the truest sense of the word, but never that religious. In small-town Newfoundland, Lent was always perceived as a Catholic tradition and as a good protestant boy, I protested it by simply ignoring it.  It’s never been something that I’ve understood well if at all from either an historical or a practical perspective.

There have been Easter seasons that I’ve attempted to do this, though none so striking that I actual remember which of my vices I denied myself of.  I seem to recall giving up soda or pop or Coke (my attempt to be geographically sensitive here) though never having been a connoisseur  of these sugary tonics this denial came ripe with built-in success.  I understand that this can be a struggle for some people, who are as hopelessly addicted to the stuff as I am to the java.  Surely at some point during my pious college years there were other things: fast-food is coming to mind but has only slightly less built-in success than soda (and then, only because of my then college-student status).

And here I am again happily adrift through another lenten season with no plan of organized self-denial.  It’s not that I don’t see the value.  The value is incredible.  Self-denial is a discipline practiced by maybe 0.00000343% of the world’s population (that number MAY be inaccuate – i.e. a complete fabrication).  Lent has the potential to be an amazing expression of incredible faith and trust.

It also has the potential to be self-aggrandizing, ego-buildling wish-wash.

Let’s be honest with one another: most of the people that we know that practice Lent do it not for any religious observance or because of their desire to fast alongside Jesus in the desert for 40 days in preparation for ministry.  No, instead it’s to see if we can actually survive the withdrawal of caffeine or the dangerously low levels of blood sugar that we’re bound to experience.  And the self-aggrandizing bit: that’s about proving to yourself and others that you, against all odds,  can actually drive PAST Starbucks on the way to and maybe from work.  It’s building up the ego.  It’s blatant self-promotion in the face of subtle self-denial.

Perhaps our lives should be about self-denial every day.  Perhaps there is enough to go around if we’re reasonable and generous.  Just maybe we can help somebody get back on their feet and we can possibly be satisfied with a 32″ LCD instead of a 42″.

I realize this may not be your thing.

Given that Lent ought to be about preparing for something new – reminiscent of Jesus’ preparing for three years of ministry – perhaps we can revisit this season with that spirit.  Jesus didn’t go to the desert to avoid drive-thrus and biggie sized fries.  He prepared to present the greatest “message” of all time to a people that were beaten down by oppressors.

It’s an incredibly different environment from what WE live in.

How will you take the next few days (it doesn’t need to be 40 – you won’t lose credit) to prepare yourself for a new part of life?  Maybe it’s time to think about what the next step is.  Maybe the old is done.

I’ve got a low-grade aversion to people – people in small doses are fine but in general they find ways to annoy or irritate me. If Lent is about denial, then why not deny ourselves the easy way out – take the long hard road through the desert instead of substituting iced tea (or sweet tea) for soda.

I want to face my fears and my aversions instead whim-ping out.  I want to deny myself the option of using the self check out at the grocery store and instead place myself squarely in the vulnerable position of having a conversation with an unknown human.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to stay silent and speak up and ACT up when people are being treated with injustice.  I want to deny myself the opportunity to passively-aggressively share my views and engage in actual dialogue.

Lent this year is much different.  It’s not denying myself of something.  It’s denying myself of self.

That is, I used to pick up a guitar and sing songs in front of people with the hope that these acts would, in supernatural way, aid in making a connection with some heavenly being.

I do not have any evidence that this effect was ever realized.

What I do have is plenty of instances where the less tolerant worshippers would fold their arms and refuse to let the silky strains of my every melodic utterance work the righteous miracles on their hearts that they so badly needed. And it’s quite damaging to ones ego and/or self respect. Could it possibly be that what I believed to be my tonality-touting, rich, baritone voice was more accurately described with words like nasally, infuriating, grating, or irksome.

“Thank you, Desmond, for those infuriating moments of connection with the Savior of the world.” I imagine them saying as they left the sanctuary better suited to live like Jesus.

Seeing men and women fold their arms rather than engage with worship did not infuriate or anger me. Instead, I remember thinking how sorry I felt for them missing an opportunity for connection. It would be dishonest of me to say that this very thing did not damage my own level of confidence to a certain degree. I cannot think of a time since when I eagerly subjected myself to the judgement of others by standing in front of them with nothing but my guitar and a voice.

It would also be misleading for me not to disclose that, in my admittedly long list of issues with what we’ve traditionally called “church” life, issues like these cynical and cold receptions rank fairly high.

And, yet sometimes I wonder in some ironic twist of fate and peer-pressure if these attitudes, conceptions, and notions aren’t the very things that cause me to huff and puff and rant about why I have no time for “church” as it’s understood to be. In my cosmic pew, I am crossing my arms or, better yet, surveying the exits for my chance for a bathroom break.

I should be very clear here. The word “church” is an automatic aversion to me. I’m playing this Sunday at a church to help out a friend but it will take every ounce of self-control not to huff and puff and heckle from the back row. It is not because I don’t believe that Jesus is who he said he was, its because I don’t believe that we’re who we say we are as Christians. I think Christians have little resemblance to Christ – and my default position is skepticism and cynicism.

I wonder if it’s these examples that I’ve lived or my resentment that has made me this way. I wonder why, if I believe that they were the ones missing out, why I’m the one that now rejects opportunities to lead worship gatherings.

Confidence is an interesting thing. At 30, I’m I feel like I’m only now becoming comfortable enough in my skin to speak with any kind of assertiveness or courage. Even then, these times seem to be at least as much the exception as the rule.

I hope my feelings towards church are not rooted in cynicism. I do not want to be the man with his arms folded and brow furrowed in disgust. He’s repulsive to me. He represents a complete antithesis from Christ – the ultimate in self-absorption and selfishness. He worships his creator the way that he best sees fit and everybody else is wrong.

Which, for someone with my convictions, is a possibility that we can sink into. We can easily become prideful and tout our tolerance and acceptance with the same stubbornness.

Even though I don’t see eye-to-eye with the church about the way business is done it’s important for me to struggle to see the good. I’ve dwelt on the bad for a long time – that’s no great accomplishment. I still want to be one that finds the good and celebrates it.

But it’s difficult.

It’s as difficult as getting back up, warming up the old baritone voice box, and bursting out with free-spirited song.

(For an interesting take on this, see this link from NPR’s Two-Way Blog. NOTE: I don’t agree with 100% of the contents of the post at this link, but find the concept incredibly relevant.  Donald Miller has also written a response to the aforementioned comments at his blog.)

This concept – that God reinforces good behavior and punishes bad – is deeply damaging to people and to faith.

On the one hand, you have people who begin to subconsciously view themselves on a level akin to rats in a lab.

In college, I had one such rat, named Gilligan.  My goal for him was to increase a behavior (namely, pressing a button in his cage) by using positive reinforcement (i.e. small pellets of food).  The progression was interesting to watch. Once he discovered the button, and began to press it, it was important to reward his behavior every time – this “charged” the button and let little Gilligan know that if He was faithful in pressing, the Button would be faithful and deliver food from the pellet chute in the sky.

If you’ve never read anything on this, you may think that this approach would be the most effective at achieving an increase in a behavior.  Interestingly enough, once the Button was “charged” what really cranked up Gilligan’s Button-zeal was when we switched to an uncertain, variable reward system.  Now instead of getting a ration every time, Gilligan had to wait on the Button’s judgement (aka the software that determined if “now was the time for chow”).  This transformed my little rat from casual worshipper to religious radical.

I imagine him crying out when his prayers did not solicit a reward, “Button, why have you forsaken me, Button?” or “”What have I done to deserve this?  I have no food with which to satisfy my hunger” or “squeaky squeak squeak squeaketh” (untranslated, due to use of explicit language).

When we make God’s providence or punishment contingent on our day to day behaviors, we are engaging a most primitive component of our existence.  We had developed wiring like this to increase our survival skills thousands and thousands of years ago.  And while it’s still useful when studying rats and pigeons, our abilities to reason, decipher, and decide should probably take more of a leading role.

Otherwise, we begin to develop a deep-seeded sense of entitlement; that we deserve to be rewarded for the good work that we’ve done.  The work itself, the satisfaction of helping others, the benefits inherent in a job well done will not be enough.  We do good, we expect good to be done to us.  We expect blessing. Frankly, we expect money, and vehicles, and houses and trips and health. If all good things come from heaven above then we start to wonder why our good would not be rewarded while others have so much.

This view is unhealthy and yet seems to be rampant in communities of faith.

Often, I hear (more realistically, I read on Facebook) people say things like, “I know that if I do this (e.g. pray faithfully, read the Bible, love people), then God will provide for my needs.” There is an incredibly sarcastic (though incredibly funny) side of me that wants to say in response, “I know that if you don’t, God will still provide for your needs.”

For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Matthew 5:45

In Button world, church and faith become about a series of behaviors that are reinforced when we, usually mistakenly, connect them with reward-”gifts” from above.  These gifts can be any kind of reinforcement, from money to a “feeling” to a sense of God’s “presence”.  We act to get rewarded.  We act to avoid punishment.  The reasons are steeped in selfishness.  Our attempts to represent selfless love and compassion are voided – they become transactional instead of transformational.  Instead of being an extension of God showing relentless love in all circumstances, we become a relentless prospector showing love to others when our investments show promising returns for ourselves.

Button faith attracts the “worst” of the faithful (those who are “in it for themselves”) and the “best” of the critics (those who say “you don’t do anything without it being selfish”). It introduces handcuffs and restraints to lives intended to be lived free.

One thing is for certain: the people of Haiti did not call destruction on themselves.  We can choose to make this disaster about us, attempting to carve out our own rewared, or about helping people because it’s the right thing to do.  Be the extension of God’s unselfish love.  Make unconditional love truly unconditional.

Pray for the people of Haiti, and those that are there to provide some sort of relief.  The scale of this tragedy is unimaginable.  There are stories that can never be told. Support them by providing relief agencies with the money they need to rebuild Haiti.

Recently, I was asked about my thoughts on tithing – which I’m defining here as the religious principle of setting aside ten percent of your productivity (i.e. most often, money) to give to the church.  If you’re a regular church-goer, you’ve probably heard sermons on this topic – probably a couple of times a year.  If you’re not a church-goer, this may be a reason why – because they’re always wanting more money.  While I don’t necessarily love to write about things like this, hopefully this will serve a couple of goals: 1. I get more writing practice in, and 2. we can look at some broader concepts here.  Plus it’s the first “10th” of 2010 – so it’s ironically fitting that a non-religious Christian would be writing about this today . . . at least in my mind.

It’s important to recognize tithing is an old concept from times when productivity was most often measured in commodities and not in profits or money or stocks.  Farmers would give a tenth of their crops to the “people of God” via the high-priests.  Ranchers would give a tenth of their calves.  This was a trend that continued across all “professions” for generations and generations.

It’s also important to remember that these people were “obligated” by law on a number of different fronts – not just giving their tithes.  There were rituals and laws and obligatory behaviors for almost everything.  They were highly regulated – throughout the Old Testament and up to Jesus appearance on the scene, which we’ll get to in a moment.  And one final point – tithing is not exclusive to the Judeo-Christian world: Babylonian texts talk about it; Sikhism talks about it; one of the five pillars of Islam is alms giving in which a fixed percentage of wealth is given to charity.

So for thousands of years people understood that they were required to give ten percent, regardless of sunshine or rain or war or drought or famine, of what they produced both for the greater good of the people and as an element of their worship.  There were punishments for not holding to this rule.  It’s easy to imagine that there was guilt and anxiety associated with this.  Like so many other things, it was “required” behavior.

The law served as an interesting construct in daily lives.  We know about the Ten Commandments – there’s a movie about that, I hear.  We know of the laws about stoning people who let their beards grow beyond 17 cubits and do not groom themselves with the brush formed of the bones of a 3 year old steer and the hair of a purple boar (fact check: this may not actually be a law, per se).  There were a lot of them, but they regulated daily life, especially when you consider the road rage of walking downwind of hundreds and thousands of people and donkeys and cattle in desert-level heat without a rest-stop in sight.  The amount of “stuff” alone would have to have been over-whelming.  You would step in “stuff”.  You would have smelled “stuff”. “Stuff” happens and so there were laws about everything, including “stuff” and the things that being surrounded by “stuff” would make you want to do to your neighbor.

Moving on.

Jesus shows up, amid a time of religiosity and occupation by a foreign army,  and sets a milestone in the course of history as it relates how people express their faith.  By this time, law was king.  Teachers had added their own interpretations of the hundreds of rules people already had to live by if they wanted to be in with God.  Systemic, punishing reprimand was the norm.  What Jesus ushered in was grace-filled, loving, thoughtful, peaceful freedom.

Essentially, His message was this – these laws were in place for a reason.  But, we’ve taken it to the extreme.  Humans (e.g. the Pharisees) have hijacked the system and made it about them and made it worse.  What God wanted to do was foster a sense of right and wrong towards each other.  What people have done is to require mindless obedience to nonsensical amendments.  It’s not about the law.  It’s about your heart.  It’s about the intentions with which you act.  It’s about the generosity of your spirit.  It’s about seeing a need and filling it.  It’s about knowing that when you do it for the prisoner or the poor or the proselytizer, you do it to me.  Not just on my behalf, but to me.  When you see the widow give what little she has out of her compassion that’s worth immeasurably more than the religious man who gives thousands of dollars out fo obligation.

As far as we know the first century church, alive the novelty of “no more rules” didn’t begin hoarding and taxing and running capital campaigns to build larger sanctuaries and nicer facilities.  Interestingly enough, they gave freely.  They sold all their belongings and gave to the poor.  All is well above 10%.  Even most is well above 10%.  When the “tenth” guideline was removed, the early church became more generous.  If we believe biblical history, we can assume this means that more people were having their basic needs met.  More widows and orphans and lepers and the unloved were being loved on.  The intention behind why the law was created had been transferred to the intentions of the hearts of individuals.  The wave of love that was unleashed must have been enormous.

What is aggravating to me is that shortly (in epic terms) after this incredible revolution our churches revert to rules that induce guilt rather than cultivating individual compassion.  Within a few hundred years, the church began instituting rules to ensure that the needs of their clergy were met.  From the earliest of days we can see how the church can ruin a good thing like a well-intending Christian.

Giving is not motivated by guilt and obligation.  It’s hand-cuffed by it.  Jesus understood this.  The early church understood this. They by-passed institutions and establishments with their administrative costs and value-adds and gave lavishly of what they had and who they were directly to those that needed. Why we believed then and believe now that an institution was necessary is evermore beyond my understanding.

If you are a part of a church community like I am, you should fund it’s operation.  You should realize that “tithing” to a church means that you’re not tithing to eradicate need in your community, to feed the widows and orphans, to clothe the naked, to visit the prisoner.  A portion decided by your leaders will be directed to ministries like these, but you are also funding the purchase of equipment, the paying of salaries, the printing of programs, the transportation of guests, etc.  If we choose big, expensive churches, with expanding campuses, high-tech production equipment, and comfortable theatre seating up-grades, we have to be prepared to pay more.  It’s like choosing a Benz over a Ford over a Kia over a Vespa.

I have been taught that we are to “tithe” to our church to meet these needs and if we are so compelled to give beyond this “tenth” to our surrounding community as we see fit.

I believe the teaching of Jesus turns this on its head.  We are to give generously and lavishly to meet the needs that we encounter – whether that’s homeless men needing food or shelter, families needing basic necessities for life at Christmas, children needing clothing, prisoners needing friends.  We are to give from our hearts, motivated by love, compassion, or whatever emotions compel us to eradicate hunger and disease and anxiety and loneliness and pain.

Our churches are best viewed as a luxury as it relates to our faith.  They are not necessary.  They are places that we choose in the same way that we shop for a vehicle.  It’s a matter of preference: do they have comfortable seats, a kicking sound system, a powerful engine, and a smooth ride?  But they have to be in our budget as well.

I will purposefully choose simplicity.  I will purposefully choose a community with lower administrative costs that echoes these thoughts – of giving lavishly from what they have as a church to meet the needs of those around them from an institutional level.  But I will not rely on them to know my heart or to act on my behalf, and I will not be handcuffed by the guilt of not meeting my 10% quota to fund the church.

There is nothing in me that wants to live restrained under the law of the Pharisees or the law of the church.  I choose to live free of the guilt of having only paid 8.2% this month and wondering if I need to make up the difference.  I choose to find and meet needs.

I choose grace.

As we passed through what most uphold as a modern-day, mini Mecca, my heart hurt a little.

I understand that we live in a consumer driven economy and very smart people imply that this is a good thing and that I should be thankful.  I understand that a byproduct of this economy is that we have to put up with long lines at shopping malls and traffic jams entering the parking lot and several lanes of pavement in some parts of town.  And, I understand that having all of these buildings closed for one day (i.e. December 25).

But I couldn’t help but be a little sad that thousands of people were flocking back to Mecca after being banned from there for an entire 24 hours.  These worshippers were unsatisfied with the blessing they’d received just days before and made the pilgrimage back to the holy land in search of something, anything, more.

Are we really so desperate?

It could certainly be that I’m reading far too much into this situation and over-dramatizing a completely benign situation.  I’ve been convicted of similar crimes in the past and have yet to be reformed.  However, the unquenched longing that is represented by these traffic jams and gift receipts and incidents of road rage is altogether depressing to me.  I’m a different person than I used to be, granted, and the prospect of a “cheap” 42″ television would have perhaps called me to a great pilgrimage of my own.

So I am in no position to condemn….

I can simply say this.

This year was the simplest (read: fewest gifts under the tree, fewest days spent on the battlefield of the mall) Christmas that we have ever had. It’s also been THE most rewarding by far.  It’s freeing.  It’s enabled us to be compassionate and generous in other ways – not new ways, simply ways that had been concealed by our own selfishness in the past.

What would it look like for your family to try this?  Plan for Christmas in much the same way – save money, clear the credit card, however you handle Christmas, but instead of trying to outdo the annually-increasing precedents you’ve set for yourself, commit to buying one gift (at the most!) for your immediate family members.  Take the same resources and funnel them towards a family who may have nothing – buy them food, or gas for their car, or presents for their kids, or sheets for their bed.  Try it.  Just once.  See if it’s not the most rewarding Christmas that you’ve ever had.

It may equate me with the “Grinch” but Christmas does not do much for me.  In past posts, I’ve alluded to my problems with doing for the sake of doing, free from any rationale.  You may recall my thoughts on church, for example.  This is a quite honest representation of who I am as I person: I need to see the rationale before getting behind something.  There has to be a strategy or a purpose.

To be even more specific, it’s not enough to simply have rationale – it’s not an “as long as you can justify it, I’m in” scenario – obviously, the justification and rationale have to align with my beliefs and morals and personality.

It is at this level that Christmas begins to fall apart for me.

Christmas has become the perpetual out-do-myself game.  It’s on a grand scale so we may not even realize it, but for so many of us, this year has to be bigger than last.  Better parties, blingier gifts, nicer decorations, 1000 more bulbs. I wonder if we haven’t made Christmas into a milestone, some point of reference to gauge our progress (read: net worth) year over year.  Last year I was able to spend $X so this year, if I’ve had a successful year, it stands to reason that I should be able to spend $X + $Y.  If not, we’ve obviously not worked hard enough, long enough, made a big enough impression on the men “upstairs” (either literally or figuratively).  Certainly we give gifts away because it’s what culture and baby Jesus would have us to do, but I wonder if we don’t give in a spirit of self-measurement.

It’s not hard to imagine.  We get a card from someone that’s not on our list and some primal guilty panic sets in.  What is the drive behind it?  Fear that the we’ll “owe” the sender something that will strike the cosmic balance in their favor?  Do we honestly think that the forgotten ones are sitting with a Santa Claus style checklist, cross-referencing every piece of festive fan mail that arrives at their doorstep?  Just because we do it ourselves, doesn’t mean everyone does

My argument is that this is reflective of the yearly benchmark that we’ve set for ourselves.  More cards out mean more friends this year over last.  More gifts out means more expendable income this year over last.  Net growth is what we’re really after when we venture out into the wilds that are our bliss acquisition depots (a.k.a. shopping malls).

It’s important to be self-aware and introspective.  I don’t want to devalue those things.  What is off, however, is our tendency to measure worth in financial or material terms.  Sure, we’re constantly bombarded with financial news.  It’s strange to go through a day without encountering a stock ticker or at least some reference to which direction the DOW has been headed lately.  It’s understandable for us to measure ourselves by the tools that we have around us – in much the same way that I still find temperatures in Fahrenheit or distances in miles to be confusing at times.

In previous posts, I’m clear about my position that Christians have ruined the church.  Something similar is true for Christmas.  I don’t want to put this all on the church – only to say that this season has been ruined for me.

The beauty has been the rediscovery.

We haven’t completely disengaged from the season.  There are things that still have value and purpose.  But becoming indebted to financial institutions is not my idea of a good time.  And Christmas is still a milestone for us.  But instead of measuring the ways that we’ve made more money in the past year, or met new people that need to read the latest installment of the Smith saga and receive a picture of us sitting under our tree, we’re able to figure out ways that we can give.  We know we’re not “wealthy” when you compare our checkbooks to those of our neighbors, but it’s a beautiful thing to not be in want.  It’s an amazing place to be.

It frees you to be able to mobilize resources, no matter how meager, to help somebody that’s in need.  So instead of buying stuff, and wrapping it in stuff and packing that in stuff, we’ve been able to give.  Maybe it’s a house up the street or maybe it’s children in a country halfway around the world.  We’ve participated in programs like World Vision and local programs designed to help children and their families nearby.  The year we’re helping build wells in Malawi (http://www.equitas.cc).

And, if you’re busy buying Christmas gifts this year – don’t worry, I’m not at all saying that you’re efforts are in vain and stupid and a waste of resources that could otherwise be used to feed the poor.  There IS great value in gift giving – that’s the way that many, many people express their love.  I’m simply saying that, for my wife and I, we’ve chosen to reroute the resources we have to other things.

So, you’re not getting anything from us this year…. again.  Honestly, it’s not that we don’t like you  We like you very much.

Merry Christmas