Reconstruction: Renewal, not Escape (or, Tithing part 3)

I believe the properly told Christian metanarrative is liberating, not oppressive, and actually deconstructs the notions of power/weakness and authority that my PoMo peers shun with their deconstruction of all metanarratives. But this post is not meant to be an apology for promoting a metanarrative, merely an attempt to summarize what I think the Christian story is (of course, after a lot of my own deconstruction of how it is usually told). So on we go . . .

I have written a lengthier discussion of the Christian story that was written in format of a week-long devotional. One can access it here, and click on the file called "devotions." Briefly, the story is as follows (with many important details missing in the summary version): The cosmos owes it's existence to the Creator of everything. The Creator made the creation very good. The Creator's position toward the creation is one of complete love. It was within the loving, good plan that the creation should be cared for (looked after, stewarded, ruled wisely) by a creature that would reflect the creator's own love and wisdom. This life and task was given to humanity, who has since turned away from the creator and ceased to reflect it. Humanity has thus become inhuman and creation has been thrown into chaos. Because of the Creator's love for creation and desire to see order restored for the benefit of what was originally created good (and still has wonderful echoes of that goodness in it), the original plan has never been abandoned. Humanity will, God determines, reflect goodness and love and justice and wisdom and thereby order creation properly. A man and his family are chosen to carry on this plan (Abram and the Hebrews). They fail as miserably as original humanity. But the plan is not abandoned that it will be through this family that all the families of the earth, and thereafter all of creation, will receive the wonderful life that only God can give. All the failure of humanity and Israel, and all the power of God to undo that failure, are focused on one Man, Jesus, whom God has chosen to be the truly Human One, the true Israelite, the human that rightly reflects God's own character and nature, intended for humanity all along. The crucifixion if a reflection of what it means to be god . . . and human; powerful; authoritative; in control. The misery and futility of creation are exhausted in Jesus' death, and then reversed in his resurrection. The body, God's creation, is not abandoned, but given new life, fuller life, death-conquering life. The Resurrection was the beginning of God's promise to renew, to make new, his creation. The Age to Come has arrived and now the Messiah's people are given the task of looking to that event in the past and anticipating how that will work itself out in the future. Please see the devotional I mentioned for a fuller exposition of all this.

What that means, then, is that Christians, the Messiah's people, should not be looking to escape the rest of creation that is doomed to destruction (as in many Evangelical tellings, including the Rapture theory). Nor is our goal to live an eternity in some place called Heaven. Our mission, our raison d'être, is to be the people who, while looking to what God has already done in Jesus, anticipate it's final outworking in the present. We are called to live the life of the Age to Come now, the life in which justice prevails, the poor and widows and orphans are cared for, the rest of creation is tended wisely and taken care of, heaven comes to earth. That is, after all, what we should hear when we say the prayer the lord taught us to pray. We are not called to 'tithe', as if 10% is God's and we can do what we like with the other 90%. Our entire lives, including our finances, need to be reordered around the fact that our lives are not our own; that we were chosen, as was Abraham and his family, not merely for our sakes, but for the sake of the rest of the world (human and nonhuman creation). It is not merely about proselytizing enough people to get them out of an eternal hell, it is about reflecting God's love and wisdom to the rest of creation and thereby partnering with the Creator in that plan to have creation rightly cared for, reflecting God's own beauty. The 'tithe' doesn't have a place in this story. Only a creative reimagining of what it means for each of as individuals and as a community of faith to participate with God in his New Creation project.

The Wrong End of the Telescope (or, Tithing part 2)

Thanks to those who participated in the previous post about tithing. I ended that one by indicating that I wasn't bashing giving, but that I didn't think tithing fit with a properly told Christian story. This post is meant to expand on that idea of a properly told story. Mind you, it is difficult to be brief and thorough with this stuff, so please forgive me if some of it appears to be a caricature.

Most Evangelical Christians, and many Christians who are not Evangelical (but since I grew up Evangelical, it is the sub-culture with which I am most familiar) tell the following story: God (in three persons) is holy and just and all-loving. Mankind was created with the intent of relationship with God which has been destroyed as a consequence of sin (which God cannot tolerate because of his holiness and justice). God chose Israel as a special people so that he could eventually be incarnated as a Jewish person who would then bare the penalty of humanity's sin by dying on the cross (to satisfy God's justice and love, which demand that he both act to do something about the situation and that there be a legal substitute for humanity). As a result, those who ask God for forgiveness, who accept that Jesus is God's only way of undoing their own personal sin, are guaranteed not to go to hell (the just consequence of sin) but rather may go to heaven when they die. Some would then add, or at the rapture. The mission of the Church, then, is to get as many people as possible out of hell and into heaven before their death or Christ's return. Tithing fits uncomfortably into this story as a throwback to the Jewish laws that is necessary for promoting church mission. Sunday morning 'church' (or Saturday for SDAs) is a given and the tithe is important for perpetuating that event.

I propose that this story is only a small part of the larger story and that, because it has focused on a microcosm of the larger, it is in many points mistaken, having drawn faulty conclusions from too little data. In particular the question of tithing misses the point of who we are entirely.

But it's late and I'm tired, so tomorrow I will post a summary of what I think a more complete story sounds like. Goodnight!

Happy Hemi-Birthday, to Aedyn!

Aedyn Shepherd is 6 months old! He likes sucking on his toes and blowing spit bubbles. He loves cantaloupe-rice puree and playing outside. Ah, the life of a baby.

Critters!

Although Eric says that the baby snake we captured in the basement is quite possibly the only one that lived there, I know that babies have mamas. and often, siblings. No more barefoot laundry duty. boots time.

I spotted this praying mantis on the handle of a hanging flower basket on our front porch last night during dinner. (that's a lot of prepositional phrases!)

Purgatory

(I know, I haven't finished the tithing post yet. Just give me a couple of weeks, please.) I always thought I didn't believe in Purgatory, being a doctrine the church decided to invent rather than one found in the biblical narrative. However, experience will change one's mind. For the last 2.5 weeks I have been in purgatory, a.k.a. my mandatory rotation in Surgery for my residency. These people don't enjoy life (generally), and sometimes it seems as if they exist merely to make others' lives less enjoyable. But through the sleep deprivation, the unkindness of my peers, their determination to be unhappy and disrespectful and make others around them miserable, I have learned more than ever that I have a choice of who I will be. I can imitate them, which is by far the more natural and facile option under our conditions, or I can aspire to reflect our Father more completely.

This is one of those success stories, in general. I have usually chosen the more human path (even if it leads to seeming 'death' and 'disaster') during this time. It has been trying, but worthwhile. It's hard not to appear different when that happens, and it has made a difference in a few people's lives and/or days. I am done in one week, but I see more completely now that purgatory exists, it is everyday, every choice we make to be like the Fully Human One or not. We are being purified and prepared for the time when The Age to Come is fully upon us, when God's kingdom has fully come on earth as it is in heaven. My success stories are few, so I think it was important to log this one!

Lily

Another water lily bloomed yesterday in our little pond; it's been about 6 weeks since we had one bloom. The fish act like a pack or a tribe rather than a school. They are so fast and very "Lord of the Flies." Aedyn loves to watch them when we feed them.

Here he is during naptime. Caught in the bars. Awake. Happy, at least. If I could find a crib with sides like a milk crate I would consider buying the ugly thing because Aedyn is always getting a leg or 2 stuck.

Eric took this picture last week in the late afternoon sun. It's been amazing how many times Eric has been able to come home in time to feed Aedyn his veggies. It was our prayer that E would see the baby awake every day--not easy with a resident's schedule. We've visited at the hospital some and Eric races home. Aedyn seems surprised when I'm the one holding his spoon full of carrots. Must be papa's gig.

Hannita might visit in a few weeks. My parents are driving over from western Nebraska in 3 weeks. We leave for Roatan in 6 weeks. Yeah life!

Missing you.

Heading to Honduras

Yep! Aedyn's first trip oversees is for Eric's international medicine rotation in Roatan, Honduras. Eric will be working with a missionary nurse and local and missionary staff at Clinica Esperanza. Roatan is an island known for scuba diving and great beaches. We'll have our own little apartment w/ kitchen and Aedyn and I will find plenty of lovely people to meet and things to see while Eric does clinic and community health. Roatan has an interesting history as many of the current inhabitants are descendants of Carib slaves left behind on Roatan island, indigenous people , descendants of English, Spanish, and Dutch pirates and imperialists (sometimes there is a difference, I think) and now tourists. We're so excited to go!
We don't scuba but we're going on that glass bottom boat!

How to Post a Comment

I stole this idea from my college roommate, Rachel, at bardwelcentral. I know that many of you reading this are new to blogging. Here are instructions for how to post a comment. If you tried before and couldn't blog, try again. You no longer need a blogger account.

1. Click on "Comments" under the blog entry you want to leave a comment about.

2. If you are really scared to leave a comment, you can just read what other people have written and then close the comment box.

3. Type what you want to say in the big empty box that says "Leave Your Comment." This is located either on the right hand side or under the other comments.

4. Type in the random string of letters in the "word verification" box.

5. For "Choose an Identity," you can click "Other" and then type in your name as you want it to appear. You don't need to type in your web page. If you are ultra-scared by this point, you can click "anonymous" and I won't know who you are :)

6. Click on "Publish Comment." If you don't like the way your comment looks, you will still be able to remove it by clicking on the trash can after the comment.

Now, readers, you have no excuse (family especially). Feel free to comment away!!

Photos: Grandma Debby loves Aedyn.
Uncle Nate the crawling instructor.
Two Brothers Pizzeria (wife helped)