Category: DOC Thoughts
Heart Imposition
Knowing that commitment unleashes energy, what can I commit myself to today?
(Daily Question, Gratefulness.org, Jan 31, 2018)
It’s that time of year that followers of Jesus begin thinking about a discipline or practice for the season of Lent. This year, Ash Wednesday is February 14. Yes, if you’ve not thought about it yet: Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day. If I was in Godspell, I would expect to receive a heart imposed on my forehead rather than a cross. Maybe that’s what we need in our context. To have our hearts and heads better connected, realigned, or reset. Realigned head and heart religion instead of “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” There is an abundance of dusty death throughout the centuries and in our midst. All kinds of Christians still struggle with “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”
When you think about Jesus of Nazareth, without a christological faith claim, a heart on the forehead represents how Jesus met people at wells, along the road, and at banquets. Jesus had a heart for people seeking better health, inclusive community, and for the comfortable complacent ones assured they would be first rather than last. Would it be an edgy faith statement to sport a heart rather than a cross this Ash Wednesday? It would invite conversation, which we need more of, and less debate.
On Ash Wednesday, members of our Regional Youth Council, (youth and adults that serve on a leadership team for the Christian Church in Oklahoma) will post a weekly devotional on my blog page, Old Camp Hat, hosted on the Region’s website. Yes, you may not know that Pam, Leslie, and I each have a little blog page on the Region’s website. I confess that we are not very active writers, but we want to be. Each Wednesday, one or more RYC members will offer some thoughts about Lent and their experience of being a follower of Jesus. So, please stop by each week, as RYC unleash the energy of a discipline during Lent.
I’ve been asked what my discipline will be this year. I’ve ‘practiced’ a variety of disciplines, from thirty minutes of silence to learning to roller blade. Quick aside, I’ve got a nice set of roller blades, size 8, and accessories, if anyone is interested. Rather than give something up, I add something to my living during Lent, which requires me to shuffle my priorities and let something go. This year, I’ll be adding sermon prep as my discipline and posting thoughts on the Lectionary texts each week on Old Camp Hat and my personal blog, davisonsdoodle.com. Why is this a discipline? I’m not an every week preacher. I’ve been a witness to ministers’ schedules and preaching preparation, so this will help me deepen my understanding of what local ministers experience. If I was a weekly preacher, I most likely would blog about the process — kind of a ‘back of the house’ look at the formation of the sermon and my thinking. It would not really be a full blown text, but thoughts working on me as part of the process. I’ll post on Tuesday afternoon during Lent.
Commitment unleashes energy. What will you commit to this Lenten season?
Parables Can Connect Us . . .
I serve in Christian ministry. Many that read this blog know that. This post is specifically for people that claim Christian faith, but I think it is applicable to all humans no matter one’s religious faith or no faith. Given the new overt nationalism that is sweeping across Europe, and now in the United States, it seems to me more important than ever that people of good will find connections at a root level so that early 20th century history doesn’t repeat itself. Nuclear weapons exist now. Those seeking the rapture, no matter the term for the apocalypse in their religion, are embedded in government institutions in our Republic, in Western liberal democracies, and in secular governments that tolerate the practice of religion inside their borders. Apocalyptic nihilism, and those that would profit from it, is alive and well no matter your class, caste, religion, or race. Buyer beware.
This year we meet Jesus through the experiences of Matthew. He probably used a few of the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Mark as his source material filling in the details that Mark leaves out. Yes, the author of Matthew may have embellished a bit based on his experiences and the time he lived. All the gospels and epistles do it. You may think that n
ever happens today, but well, you know different. A couple of weeks ago we met the first disciples (Matthew 4:18-23) that Jesus called: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. It was the beginning of their disciple story. Have you ever thought about how your disciple story begins?
Did it begin with a parable? Try this to begin remembering. “Look in a mirror and see if you can see yourself without seeing your eyes seeing yourself.”(1)
The parables that Jesus told flip our thinking and our vision. New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan notes, “First, parable is story, that is, a tensive sequence of beginning, middle, and end in a narrative that lures you into its plotted micro world to participate as an outsider-insider in its ongoing adventure.”(2) The parables describe the world, relationships, and community as the way it could be, should be, would be, might be were those that believe in the God that Jesus proclaimed experiencing good news; and being living good news. Often, it takes walking around in another person’s shoes to see the world through another lens. Yes, that takes a lot of work. My guess is your disciple story begins with you seeing or experiencing God differently, and that there is something more to your story than accepting Christ as your savior and being baptized.
Maybe one or two of the parables can connect us as followers of Jesus. Which one or two of the parables best frame the good news of God or describe the kindom of God? Which parable provides connections to community and to practicing the way of Jesus which, in our current context, might be different than what is called Christianity.
I think the parables have the power to connect us, we disciples of Jesus, because they work on us and help us be better people. Many of the people I know, non-Christian and Christian alike, work a parable or two every day. Most often without any thought. So, I’ll be thinking about the parables this spring, with a few colleagues and friends, trying to choose one or two that connect us and our discipleship following Jesus, whom we call Christ. I look forward to the journey. Join us. I’ll be posting the conversations here.
——
Note
1. John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction About Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 243.
2. Crossan, The Power of Parable, 243.