Perceptions from a Pewboy

In about a month, a couple thousand United Methodist laity and clergy will gather on the beautiful campus of Grove City College for an important time that we call “Annual Conference.” We will sing and worship together. We will honor retiring pastors and ordain some new ones. We will study Scripture and hear presentations.

And, of course, we will discuss and debate legislation.

For some reason, my prayerful preparation for this year’s Annual Conference has taken my thoughts to Chuck Klosterman’s relentlessly entertaining novel “Downtown Owl” (published in 2008). The novel focuses on life in the mid-1980’s as it unfolds in the eccentric small town of Owl, North Dakota—a town where cable television is not available and where “disco is over but punk never happened.”

As the people of Owl proudly resist the narrative of popular culture, they invest their energies in those time-tested realities that seem to be woven into the DNA of the town’s lifeblood: high school football, hating the government, reckless sexual relationships, and the copious consumption of alcohol. In Owl, normalcy is impossible for outsiders to define, and even the lifelong residents have stopped trying.

Interestingly, church life is still important to a portion of Owl’s population. In fact, the local Roman Catholic church is very pleased with the arrival of its new priest, Father Steele, who is “a young, fat, affable, nebulously feminine individual who—in stark contrast to his predecessor—did not assume that all women were the intellectual equivalent of cows.”

In what I consider to be one of the most hilarious (and realistic) literary treatments of ecclesiastical decision-making that I have ever encountered, Klosterman takes the practice of Bible study (in a Roman Catholic context) and makes it the center point of a church-related controversy. The narrator in the story sets the stage in this fashion:

Traditionally, Roman Catholics are not big Bible scholars. Catholics focus on the Gospels; the rest of the Bible is what Protestants arbitrarily memorize for no obvious reason. Father Steele wanted to change this…[And so] five middle-aged women agreed to meet with Father Steele every Wednesday morning in the basement of the church rectory to debate the Word of God. That was September. By October, Vernetta Mauch hated Melba Hereford the way Nixon hated JFK. The feelings were mutual.

At the heart of this controversy is the question of what a Bible study should include. Vernetta Mauch believes that Bible study is best treated as an opportunity for individuals to relate the biblical stories to their personal experiences, and Vernetta has become quite adept at this practice. In fact, according to the narrator, “there was not a single anecdote from either Testament that Vernetta could not connect to specific dramatic events in her own personal history, or even to semi-dramatic events from the previous Friday.”

In short, Vernetta approaches Bible study as an opportunity to discuss the intersection of Scripture and her personal journey, much to the disdain of Melba Hereford. Melba, under the influence of a vastly different hermeneutical approach, resents what she perceives to be Vernetta’s efforts to use the Bible as a springboard for egocentric revelation: “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melba interjected when Vernetta tried to use Christ’s damning of a fig tree as a means to criticize her husband’s insistence on buying a new lawn tractor. “Buying a lawn mower has nothing to do with the Son of God. You’re ruining the Bible for everyone.”

For Melba, Bible study is not to be a time of personal revelation and application. Rather, it is to be a context for intellectual discernment in which a safe and dignified distance can be maintained between Biblical truth and the people who are pondering it (preferably in silence). So passionate is Melba about this conviction (and her dislike for Vernetta) that she encapsulates her angst into an administrative point of order: “I want to make a new rule,” Melba says during a Bible study. “From now on, no one can talk about their own life during Bible study.”

Like all good church people, they put it to a vote. The final tally was 3-2 in favor. As a result, “Owl now had the only Bible-study group in America where it was forbidden to tell any story less than two thousand years old.”

Klosterman’s deft and creative literary exploration of this fictional (but wonderfully true to life) milieu brought me to simultaneous laughter and sadness. I laughed because I heard in Vernetta and Melba the voices of hundreds of my past parishioners, all of whom had passionate convictions about what should and should not be included in everything from Bible study to worship, everything from sacramental practice to church music. The laughter, however, was accompanied by a strange sense of sadness over my remembrance of the Vernetta’s and Melba’s I have encountered over the years who wound up hating one another because of their drastically divergent views of what the church’s ministry should and should not accommodate.

When I ponder the relationship between Melba and Vernetta, it is impossible for me not to think about two women in my very first appointment who were locked in a seven-year feud over whether the American flag was to be located stage-right or stage-left of the altar. (Interestingly, when I suggested to them that it may be best for the American flag not to be present on either side of the altar, since Trinitarian worship bears witness to a Kingdom that transcends nationalistic identity, both women found an unanticipated unity in their shared dislike for their pastor’s “newfangled ideas!”)

I suppose that my point (and, I think, Klosterman’s) is that church can be a tricky place. It is a place where great potential exists for mystical intersections between the eternal and the commonplace. And yet, given the eccentricities, passions, and personalities of the church’s people, it can also become a fragmented and compartmentalized environment in which people are either loved or hated depending upon which compartment they choose to occupy. In such an environment, it is often difficult to avoid jumping into a murky sea of distorted priorities—a sea in which the church’s people are far more interested in the school of red herrings swimming around them than they are in the One who walks on the water and invites his followers to join him there.

And yet, after all the literary dust had settled, my reading of “Downtown Owl” left me with a feeling of gratitude for the church and its ministry. Klosterman, perhaps unintentionally, helped me to remember that the Church, at its best, is the only environment in the world in which Vernetta’s and Melba’s can be confronted by biblical truth and challenged to live into the reality of making Christ-centered peace amidst divergent convictions. The risk of such an environment, of course, is that people might wind up hating one another if their desire to win the argument become more passionate than their desire for Christocentric koinonia.

But, every once in a while, I still find Melba and Vernetta sitting beside one another in the same pew (or in the same row at Annual Conference)—singing together, praying together, and allowing the cross of Christ to bridge the gap between their contrasting personal preferences. In those moments, I tend to be awestruck by the church’s holy potential that is occasionally and beautifully realized.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Annual Conference. Please pray for our time together at Grove City. Pray for our Bishop as he prepares to preside. Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon that robust gathering of United Methodist Christ-followers. Finally, pray that all of our “Melba’s” and “Vernetta’s” will be drawn closer to one another and closer to the risen Christ, whose Lordship is always far more unifying than our differing viewpoints are divisive.

These are hard and important days, friends—days in which matters of love and covenant commingle with issues of legislation and judicial parlance; days in which diverse people unified by a deep faith attempt to find their way into the synergy between the cry for justice and equality and the cry for holiness and biblical integrity; days in which marriage is too often seen as something to debate rather than the relational tabernacle in which a covenantal love can be nurtured, protected, and honored.

I struggle schizophrenically between saying too little and too much. As a clergy person, speaking too loudly on social issues such as same sex marriage often draws the ire of those who maintain that a pastor must be a pastor to the entire church and must be careful not to become divisive in her/his ideological alignments. On the other hand, speaking too softly—or remaining silent altogether—draws the prophetic critique of those who (to borrow the powerful language of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”) believe that far too many church leaders “stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” or, even worse, remain “silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.”

Over the years, I have tried, probably unsuccessfully, to stand upon the bridge between positional extremes, believing in my heart of hearts that the bridge upon which I have stood is nothing less than the durable and unifying Lordship of Jesus. The danger with standing on a bridge in times of ideological conflict, however, is the potential of being shot at from both sides—attacked from two directions for not being decisive enough (or courageous enough) to locate oneself on one side of the bridge or another.

And yet, even as a bridge-stander, I am desperately committed both to justice and holiness, both to equality in the human community and equanimity in the interpretation of our sacred texts. It is precisely this commitment that has generated a host of personal convictions that I am holding with a particular sense of urgency these days.

One of those convictions is that, irrespective of ecclesiastical ordinances and Disciplinary references (most of which are the necessary byproduct of the church’s painful struggle to establish sexual ethics that are at once biblically rooted, intellectually sound, and experientially authentic), I do not want to see my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters (many of whom are deeply-devoted Christ-followers) unfairly denied the federal benefits that I, as a married heterosexual man, so often take for granted. Outside the issue of the church’s sexual ethics, after all, is the issue of equitable care for the heterogeneous human community.

Regardless of where the church stands in the ongoing conversation about sexual ethics, there is, in the Christian narrative, a clarion call to be non-discriminatory in the determination of who it is with whom the church shares its Christocentric love and ministry. Would the church ever demand theological agreement before offering food to a hungry person? Would the church ever withhold medical care from someone until the person assented to a list of theological propositions? Would the church ever make a particular theory of the Atonement a prerequisite before providing clothing to a needy family? If the answer to these questions is as obvious as I think it is, then one is compelled to wonder why the church would insist upon a consensus on sexual ethics before encouraging its culture’s government to provide equal benefits to all of its covenantally-committed couples.

In a related personal conviction, I also do not want my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to be without a fair opportunity to validate publicly and to solemnize communally their committed relationships, regardless of their church’s particular stance on the issue of same sex marriage. The church’s theologically-nuanced and multi-layered discernment related to human sexuality is an often-painful work in progress. Human sexuality is a regular agenda item in the prayerful conferencing of Christian believers, all of whom approach the issue with passionate convictions and diverse ideas. After decades of earnest study, dialogue, and debate, the church has not been able to reach a consensus on the issue of homosexuality. Christians of vibrant and authentic faith differ widely in their viewpoints. Some believe wholeheartedly that Scripture and tradition settle the issue. Others believe that reason and experience demand a reinterpretation and a reimagining of the pertinent biblical texts. There is no indication that consensus is anywhere on the near horizon.

The light of this reality illuminates a critically important question: What recourse is given to committed gay and lesbian couples who disagree theologically and ethically with their church’s prohibitions and who yearn for a means by which to bring communal consecration to the covenantal love that they are committed to preserving? Some Christ-followers would approach this issue restrictively. This Christ-follower, however, believes it to be morally equitable for a theologically-neutral government to provide the kind of solemnization for the same sex couple that many churches are not theologically prepared to offer.

Some of my sisters and brothers in the Christian community will no doubt come to the conclusion that I have gone too far in my allowances. Others will feel that I have not gone far enough. My goal has not been to create further rancor or division. Rather, my goal has only been to raise the possibility of a more compassionate, holistic, and justice-driven approach to an issue that is all too frequently reduced to sound bites, divisive rhetoric, and Facebook debates.

In the end, my heart’s desire is for the church to move beyond debilitating dichotomies in order to frame the foundational question differently: Regardless of one’s sexual orientation, what does it mean to practice the kind of stewardship over one’s sexuality that enables even one’s sexuality to become something doxological—a song of praise offered to the Giver of every good and perfect gift?

As a follower of Jesus, I am often far less interested in the particular position that one holds on an issue than I am in how one arrived at that position and, even more important, how one engages with both those who hold a similar viewpoint and those who approach the issue with different convictions.

I have long believed that arriving at a passionately-held opinion is the least-demanding portion of ethical discourse. Strong opinions, while they may involve a certain degree of deductive or inductive reasoning and sophisticated cognition, require no artistry, nuance, or relationship. They demand nothing more than an individual’s intellectual assent to an articulated position. Following the intellectual assent, the opinion often becomes as comfortable for its holder as rhythmic breathing—rarely contemplated, but regularly expressed.

Holding strong opinions is the easy part. Everyone can do it and normally does.

The real challenge of ethical discourse, however, involves the territory that surrounds the opinion. Has the opinion been reached in a manner that is intellectually holistic and experientially reinforced? Has the opinion been cultivated with a reasonable attentiveness to all of the available data and not simply the portions of data that reinforce one’s preexisting predilections? Has the opinion been liberated from the weight of rhetoric and tested with the scrutiny of an open and rigorous mind? And is the opinion held with the kind of flexible intellectual grip that permits illuminating engagement with differing viewpoints? These are the questions that lead one well beyond the simple “speaking of one’s mind” and into the undulating terrain of ethical contemplation and moral decision-making.

If one is a Christ-follower, the task becomes even more complex. Christianity’s narrative is one that is rich with seemingly absurd instructions: Do not simply speak the truth (or speak one’s mind), but “speak the truth IN LOVE” (Ephesians 4:15). Do not simply insist on a particular course of action, but incarnate a spirit that is “not arrogant or rude…or irritable or resentful. (1 Corinthians 13:5). Do not become idolatrous about particular opinions, but be perpetually aware of the fact that “our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect (1 Corinthians 13:9).

In the face of a rather complex social issue in his day, the Apostle Paul addressed the question of what Christ-followers are to do about eating meat that had been offered to idols, since there existed an ethical disagreement between those who felt free to eat what they wanted and those who felt obligated to adhere to strict dietary laws. Paul’s counsel in the matter bears witness to his conviction that, at least in certain ethical matters, the particular position one holds is less important than the manner in which s/he holds it: “We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak…If food is the cause of [people’s] falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” (1 Corinthians 8:8-9, 13).

In this particular moment of Paul’s interpretation of Christian ethics, he expresses the rather countercultural idea that one’s individual viewpoint cannot be so monolithic and uncompromising that it refuses to be subordinated to the integrity and preservation of that diverse and heterogeneous community that Christians call church. In other words, to borrow Paul’s language from earlier in this same portion of Scripture, agapic love is the governor of individual opinions and not the other way around, since “knowledge puffs up but love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1).

What does all of this have to do with the current debate on gun control? Much, I think—at least for followers of Jesus. Followers of Jesus, if they are to be true to the narrative by which they are called to live, must be specifically Christian, not only in the opinions that they hold, but also in the manner in which they arrive at those opinions, steward those opinions, and communicate those opinions. To borrow the Apostle Paul’s framework, Christ-followers are simply not permitted to elevate a particular conviction about eating meat (or, for that matter, owning guns) above their moral responsibility to preserve the kind of Christ-centered community that is durable enough to accommodate differing viewpoints without rancor, without malice, and without a sharp-edged insistence upon one’s own rightness.

The Christian narrative, of course, in no way removes from the Christ-follower the blessing of being able to develop and hold passionate opinions and convictions. Christians are not called to be devoid of individual perspective. What is powerfully unique about the Christ-follower’s individual perspective, though, is the way in which the Christ-follower is called to manage and articulate it. Specifically, Christ-followers are called to hold and offer their convictions in a manner that bears consistent witness to their stubborn refusal to value their opinions over their relationships with those who do not share them. I see this as a critical portion of the sanctification of individual perspectives.

In light of the urgency of this sanctification, I offer the following thoughts—my own personal opinions, mind you, held firmly but with a flexible grip:

1. Christ-followers would do well to make peace with the fact that intelligent people of deep and authentic faith reside on both sides of the issue of gun control. Three days ago, I shared a meal with two Christians that I greatly admire, one of whom is a pacifist who sees no value whatsoever in President Obama’s new gun control proposals (since, in his words, “the peace we are called to manifest will never be legislated.”) The other Christian at the table was a soldier, hunter, and gun-owner who believes that President Obama’s new proposals are “desperately needed in this country, if for no other reason than to establish the right tone and boundaries for how the issue is approached.”

While I personally gravitated toward the viewpoint of the soldier, I found myself deeply encouraged by the absence of bitterness in the conversation. These were not rhetoricians insisting on the absoluteness of their own rightness. They were brothers in Christ who seemed genuinely interested in how the other person arrived at his conviction. I did not have the sense that either man had become idolatrous about his opinion; or that either man felt that the Kingdom of God (or the American Constitution, for that matter) depended upon the promulgation of his conviction; or that their individual perspectives were more important to either of them than their shared friendship. Rather, I sensed that I was in the presence of two men of deep intellect and even deeper faith whose respectful disagreement about gun control found a comfortable home in the context of their mystical and durable oneness in Christ. On that afternoon, the salad bar at Eat n’ Park became a Eucharistic meal, where differing opinions were nothing but optional side dishes to the shared Bread of Heaven and Cup of Salvation.

2. Christ-followers would do well to remember that, in a specifically Christian conversation about moral behavior, the foundational question is never “What do I have the right to do?” but rather “What IS right to do?” It troubles me when Christian people limit their ethical conversations to debates about the nuances of their constitutional or civil “rights,” since, for Christ-followers, the primary concern is not the preservation of identified rights but the transformational and Spirit-enabled pursuit of righteousness.

This is not to suggest that the clear enumeration and protection of constitutional and civil rights is not an important conversation in which to participate. Such rights, after all, are an integral portion of the maintenance of a fair and just nation. In a specifically Christian morality, however, the concept of inalienable rights (which is not at all a Biblical concept) is never the starting or ending point of any conversation. Rather, Christocentric ethics are grounded in a different set of questions: What is the most right thing for me to do? What is the most helpful and edifying thing for me to do? Am I being called to sacrifice something for a greater good? Am I being called to defend something because of a Biblical principle? What decision will represent my very best effort to work toward a just and merciful outcome? How can I best bear witness to my primary identity—not my identity as an American citizen with inalienable rights, but my identity as a baptized follower of Jesus whose national citizenship, while important, is secondary to his/her Christological citizenship?

Such questions will not always lead two Christians to the same ethical viewpoint, especially on a controversial matter like gun control. My fear, however, is not potential disagreement. My fear is that, in the current climate, too many Christians are arriving at an opinion without an honest wrestling with the right questions.

3. Christ-followers would do well to remember what history has all too frequently taught us—that vitriolic fundamentalism of any sort normally distorts the pursuit of moral truth and replaces the dynamic hunger for righteousness with a stifling and malicious desire to protect and promulgate a particular ideology. Concerning the particular issue at hand, fundamentalism is alive and well:

*“They will have to pry my gun out of my cold dead fingers!”

*“People who aren’t in favor of gun control are ALL addicted to the pathological violence of our culture.”

*“I don’t see how ANY CHRISTIAN could NOT be in favor of stricter gun laws, especially in the aftermath of what happened in Connecticut.”

*“The ONLY WAY to ensure our freedom as a country is to preserve the right to arm ourselves with the same kind of weapons that our military has. It is our ONLY protection against the development of tyranny.”

These very real and current viewpoints may raise significant issues for the conversation, but the tone of the viewpoints resonates, not with a passionate yearning for a just and truthful discernment, but a fundamentalist impulse to fixate on a conviction while dismissing or demonizing those who do not agree with it. The church behaves like the church only when it refuses to allow any ethical conversation to be stifled by the compartmentalizing rubrics of fundamentalism.

4. Christ-followers would do well to manifest the kind of authentic humility that enables the cultivation of a healthy supply of “I may be wrong”-ness. Again, by this I do not mean to suggest that Christians are to relinquish the blessing of forming strong opinions on important issues. I am convinced, however, that we practice specifically Christian ethics only when we operate with a keen awareness of the important differences between “conviction” and “certainty.” Convictions are discerned and lived; certainty is established and protected. Convictions can live peacefully with opposing convictions; certainty normally seeks to defend its territory. Convictions can be held firmly but gently, with a profound awareness of our incomplete knowledge; certainty often demands a tighter grip and the illusion of omniscience.

Related to the issue of gun control—and all other issues—Christ-followers are at their best when they manifest the kind of genuine humility that heartfelt convictions permit but that rigid certainty resists.

5. Christ-followers would do well to commit themselves to making certain that their contemplation and discussion of gun control bears witness to the “new creatures” that they have become in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the new birth that Christ makes possible (John 3:3). No matter whether one opposes or supports gun control reform, it is essential for the Christ-follower to resist the ethical schizophrenia of being christologically reborn but behaviorally and practically heathen. If Christ has made one new, then even the manner in which one articulates one’s perspectives and participates in public debate must be under the transformation of sanctification.

Practically speaking, this will mean that Christ-followers will listen respectfully and attentively to opposing viewpoints, thereby avoiding the temptation to become nothing more than “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

It will mean that Christ-followers on both sides of the issue will refuse to allow the issue itself to become a divisive litmus test for relationship, thereby ensuring a commitment to being “patient and kind…not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.”

It will mean that Christ-followers will become far less interested in jumping on the bandwagon of convenient and divisive rhetoric and far more interested in standing on the solid ground of ever-expanding discernment, thereby generating a spirit that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Most of all, it will mean that Christ-followers will live with a perpetual and holistic awareness of the fact that, irrespective of what decisions are made related to gun control reform, our life-giving hope and deepest deliverance are not to be found in the preservation, reformation, or interpretation of a constitutional amendment, but in Christ’s astoundingly gracious invitation to participate in an often countercultural and radically peaceable Kingdom in which “faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

(Three years ago, in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, I wrote a post in which I explored God’s relationship to human suffering. I have re-worked, re-crafted, and re-written that post in response to the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I hope that this is helpful for those of you who choose to read it. I offer it prayerfully and reverently as I stand with all of you upon the sacred ground of our shared grief.)

The recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut compels me to ponder the issue of human suffering and God’s relationship to it.

Throughout my ministry, I have often heard people give expression to a profound and ultimately unanswerable question in the midst of their experiences of suffering:

Why?

“My child has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Why would a loving God permit such a cruel reality?”

“I trusted my husband completely, but he shattered my life by telling me that he doesn’t love me anymore and running off with someone else. Why would God permit me to fall in love with a person who would cause me such pain in the long run?”

I am sure that all of you could add your own personal conversations to this list.

Yesterday, while looking for a few Christmas cards in the local Hallmark store, I overheard a new expression of the “why” question. It went like this:

I just can’t bring myself to buy a religious Christmas card right now. In fact, after Friday, I’m not even sure what I really believe about God anymore. How can God be real—no, what I mean is, how can God be GOOD—if he allows innocent children and teachers to be murdered in a matter of seconds. Why wouldn’t a good God do something to prevent such unimaginable violence?

In my own arrogance, I long to be able to answer the “why” question in a way that is succinct, poignant, and reassuring, thereby impressing people with my theological acumen while at the same time putting people back on the right theological track. I long to be able to fit human suffering into a concise theological equation, one that validates the comforting axiom that everything happens for a reason. The fact of the matter, however, is that this humble preacher is as ill-equipped as everyone else to answer the “why” question.

The narrative that I endeavor to preach, after all—the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments—never provides its readers with a detailed theodicean apologetic. In the Old Testament, the man named Job never receives an answer to his impassioned “why” in the midst of his hardship. The man named Abraham is never pacified with an explanation of the divine mandate to sacrifice his son (a mandate that is eventually rescinded, but not forgotten). In the New Testament, Jesus offers to us no elaborate explanation of why poverty exists, why leprosy seems to have the upper hand, or why the journey to salvation must include a hideous cross.

All that Scripture offers to us concerning our “why” questions is a cryptic affirmation that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8), which can hardly be described as a satisfactory explanation for a cancer diagnosis or a massacre in an elementary school classroom.

And yet, while Scripture stubbornly refuses to answer the “why” questions related to human suffering, Scripture does place before us the strangely unsettling image of a weeping and suffering Christ. We find him weeping over the sin and brokenness of Jerusalem. We find him weeping over the death of his dear friend Lazarus. We find him breaking and bleeding and wailing on that Roman instrument of death called the cross.

Such images are significantly more than theological masochism designed to titillate the sensibilities of future generations. Rather, if we truly believe that Jesus represents the fullness of God’s self-disclosure (and I do), then the image of a weeping and suffering Christ is nothing less than a stark and worldview-altering revelation of the very character of God. To put it in the simplest of terms, if Jesus represents the fullness of God’s self-disclosure, then a weeping and suffering CHRIST means that we have a weeping and suffering GOD.

Not a God who remains at a safe observational distance, orchestrating and micromanaging human suffering for the purpose of testing our mettle. Not a stoic God who refuses to be moved by the tragic segments of the human pilgrimage. Not a coldhearted and emotionally hardened deity who capriciously dispenses rewards and punishments—“Here, let’s see how the people of Connecticut deal with this.”

Not that kind of God.

Instead, the blood and tears of Christ bear witness to a God who is so thoroughly invested in humankind’s journey that the divine heart actually has the capacity to break to the point of weeping; a God who has poured the divine self so thoroughly into the human condition that God cannot help but break where we break, bleed where we bleed, weep where we weep; a God who loves us with such a wild and profligate love that God takes every portion of human suffering personally, receiving it into God’s very self in such a way that human and divine teardrops commingle in a mind-boggling relational intimacy.

And, according to Scripture, that’s not even the best part.

The best part is that God refuses to allow death and suffering to have the final word to speak. When the weeping is finished, when God and the people of God have wept for long enough, God goes to work in transformationally redemptive fashion, thereby ensuring that the weeping gives way to resurrection.

I probably do not have to tell you that Scripture is replete with resurrectional experiences: the people of Israel finding new hope and new life in their Egyptian captivity; Lazarus coming forth; the church in Acts moving from Stephen’s martyrdom to newfound evangelical fervor; Jesus of Nazareth walking out of a tomb that could not contain him. When we dare to move beneath the surface level of these resurrectional experiences, we find the beating heart of a God who seems to specialize in bringing new life out of certain death—a God who loves to grab hold of despair for the purpose of transforming it into hope; who loves to grab hold of tragedy for the purpose of transforming it into an opportunity for sacrificial ministry; who loves to grab hold of brokenness for the purpose of initiating a powerful movement toward wholeness.

None of this, of course, implies a twisted system of cause and effect. That is to say, we need not believe that God’s way is to CAUSE a mass shooting as a means to some redemptive end. Such a methodology would make no theological sense to the heart of a God who weeps so easily and deeply.

But, in the mysterious and often inexplicable progression of the human journey, when a tragedy does occur, our comfort and hope are to be found, not in the answering of the “why” question, but in the revealed nature of our weeping and resurrecting God, whose intimacy and vulnerability compel God to weep and whose creative grace compels God to redeem and resurrect.

Please do not interpret this post as a theological sidestep. Believe me, I would still like to have an answer to the “why” question in the aftermath of the tragedy in Newtown. But, in light of the fact that the “why” of such a tragedy is nothing short of inscrutable, I am compelled to consider the possibility that the more significant and urgent question to ponder is “where?” More specifically, where was God when a mass shooting brought a sudden end to twenty-eight lives? That is a question that we CAN answer, and the answer is this:

God was right there in Newtown. God was right there, in the Sandy Hook classrooms, offices, and closets. God was right there, standing with those children, teachers, and staff members, holding those precious souls in tender arms, experiencing their pain, their terror—their death—as intimately as they did. God was right there, in the hearts of the brave teachers, administrators, and first responders who did everything they could to protect the vulnerable souls that had been entrusted to their care. God was right there, in the thick of it all, feeling the pain of every death, sharing the pain of every tear. Because that is who God is. Intimate. Personal. Vulnerable. Emotional. Incarnational. Wounded. Crucified.

And, when the weeping stops for a while, God will still be right there, gradually but steadily leading a devastated people into a new season of hope and redemption—leading people out of death and into new life, new strength, new possibilities.

That, too, is who God is.

The following is an e-mail that I sent out to as many clergy on the Washington District as I could on the Saturday morning after Friday’s horrific tragedy in Connecticut. I share it on this blog for two reasons: First, because there are some clergy on the district who are currently having e-mail difficulties but who do have the internet capability to visit this blog; and, second, because I thought that some of you may be interested in knowing how one humble and shaken pastor (yours truly) is processing yesterday’s terrible events. Blessings to all of you.

A LETTER TO THE CLERGY OF THE WASHINGTON DISTRICT

Hello, my friends and colleagues.

Even as I type these words, I am praying for you as you make ready to lead your people in various ways this weekend. As we experience the third weekend of Advent, we stand together on the difficult ground of an incomprehensible tragedy that has brought our entire nation into a profound grief. Even this morning, I remain in stunned and painful silence as I contemplate the journey ahead for the family members and friends of those precious souls in Newtown, Connecticut who lost their lives senselessly yesterday at the hands of a murderer whose motives will never become fully clear to us.

As I put on my Facebook wall last night,

I hesitate to interrupt the reverent silence that today’s unfathomable tragedy in Connecticut demands. And yet, I long to connect with you, my sisters and brothers, even in these occasionally-superficial chambers of Facebook. I am grateful that our lives intersect in meaningful ways, and, tonight, I kneel with those of you who believe in the power of prayer. I pray for devastated parents and family members who are broken beyond words. I pray for survivors who are holding horrific memories in their deepest thoughts. I pray for police officers, paramedics, doctors and nurses, and members of the school’s faculty and staff, all of whom are serving as agents of order amid chaos and as instruments of healing amid agony. I pray for children who are terrified and for parents who are clinging tightly to them. Tonight, while I have no easy or satisfactory answers to offer to the questions that all of us are asking, I join many of you in leaning more deeply into the abiding presence of a weeping and grieving God—a God who breaks and bleeds with us; a God who sustains us with the blessed assurance that sin and death are never given the final word to speak; a God who, in the fullness of time, saw fit to come to us in the stark vulnerability of a child. Blessings upon all of you as you process what has come before us and as you stand with others upon the sacred ground of our shared sorrow.

We do not know precisely why tragedies like this happen, or why people make the decisions that they do. But we do know Jesus. And, because we believe that Jesus is the fullness of God’s self-disclosure, then, since we find Jesus weeping in at least three different places in the New Testament, we must also have a God who weeps. Not a God who sits back indifferently and micromanages human suffering and tragedy. But a God who is intimately present with us in the midst of even our most agonizing times—hurting where we hurt, breaking where we break, weeping where we weep.

Where was God during yesterday’s shooting? God was in the classroom with those children, teachers, and staff members. God was holding those precious souls in his arms, experiencing their pain, their terror—their death—as intimately as they did.

This conviction makes a huge difference to me, friends, because it addresses the question of how God relates to human suffering. If we are to take Jesus seriously, then we must conclude that God relates to the tragedy in Connecticut tenderly, personally, and emotionally, not distantly or cold-heartedly. Let us never forget, after all, that, in Jesus, we find a God who allowed even his own Son to be brutally crucified for the sake of our redemption, thereby revealing to us that God knows a thing or two about enduring the suffering of a child. How could such a God not be heartbroken by yesterday’s events?

Of course, Jesus also reveals to us that it is in the midst of death and suffering that God does some of his most powerful and redemptive work. Sustaining the grieving, healing the broken, and providing a spirit of life and hope in the face of death is what God does best of all. I am confident that, even in this moment, God is hard at work to bring supernatural comfort, healing, and deliverance for all of those who are personally connected to yesterday’s tragedy.

As you lead your people this weekend, please know that I am standing alongside you in prayer. Offer to your people the Gospel that we treasure so dearly. Remind your people of how this tragedy should make us all the more grateful that God saw fit to step out of eternity, wrap himself up in our fragile flesh, and come to us in the most vulnerable way imaginable—as a helpless infant. Speak to your people afresh about the reality that I articulated in my Facebook post—the reality that, in Jesus Christ, sin and death are never given the final word to speak.

I am deeply grateful for all of you and for the ministry that you offer so faithfully. I simply wanted to connect with as many of you as I could on this Saturday morning, for no other reason but to encourage you and to let you know that I am holding you all in my prayerful heart.

With love,
Eric Park

In the animated Christmas classic, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the viewing audience is introduced to the Island of Misfit Toys. The toys living on this island are ostracized from the other toys in the world because they are functionally or cosmetically flawed. On this island, for example, there lives a squirt gun that only shoots jelly; a toy train with square wheels; a stuffed elephant with spots; even a Charlie in the Box who laments that he was not given the name “Jack.”

The mood on the Island of Misfit toys is understandably somber. The misfit toys long to be played with, but no one ever comes to the island to claim them. Each Christmas Eve brings about a particular sadness on the island as the inhabitants realize that other “normal” toys will be joyfully embraced by eager children the next morning. The misfit toys, on the other hand, can only dream of such an embrace. After all, in the words of one of the misfit toys, “no one wants to play with a Charlie in the Box!”

As a child, when I watched Rudolph for the first time, the Island of Misfit Toys inspired me to believe that all of my toys were imbued with a personality and a network of emotions. As soon as the show was over, I literally ran to my toy box and pulled out some of the toys with which I had not played for months—the Magic 8 Ball; the Weebles; the Etch a Sketch; the Rock’em Sock’em Robots; the G.I. Joe doll (who was missing an arm due to a grueling struggle with the family dog). When all of these toys were scattered before me, I proceeded to whisper to all of them the sentiments that were emerging from my 5-year-old heart. My whispers that evening sounded something like this: “None of you are misfit toys! I promise! You’re still special, even though you might not be as new as my other toys! Don’t be sad, ’cause you are the toys that came first!”

It was a memorable manifestation of the beautiful innocence of childhood.

It occurs to me that the birth of Jesus some two-thousand years ago was God’s mysterious and glorious way of whispering precisely that same message to all of humankind: “None of you are misfit toys, I promise! All of you are precious! All of you are worth ‘playing with’! I’ll never throw you away!”

Part of the good news of Christmas, in other words, is that each one of us matters to the One who created us, regardless of our size, shape, history, temperament, or situation in life. In fact, we matter to God so deeply that God would settle for nothing less than pouring the very best of divinity into a Bethlehem feeding trough for the sake of our salvation and redemption.

It comes down to this, I suppose: Christ came even for the Charlies in the Box and the spotted elephants. Because, in the Kingdom of God, there is no such thing as a misfit toy. I am deeply grateful for a place in that kind of toy box.

Would you describe yourself as patriotic?

The word “patriot” is a derivative of a Greek word that essentially means “of one’s fathers” (as in “forefathers”). In a more general sense, the Greek word from which we derive the word “patriotic” means “relating closely to those of one’s country.”

Based upon this foundational etymology, I feel very comfortable describing myself as “patriotic.” Even as I type these words, for example, I am cognizant of my profound gratitude for my forefathers and foremothers who sacrificed much—some their very lives—to create a land of liberty and hope. I am even more grateful that, in those seasons of moral blindness and failure, when America accommodated incomprehensible evils such as slavery, slaughter, and civil war, the nobler impulses at the heart of our nation’s identity inspired new and, at times, countercultural patriots to stand against accepted atrocities until others began to recognize the truth of their prophecy.

One of my dearest friends (who happens to be a soldier) has experienced several lengthy deployments in recent years. When I look into his eyes (and the eyes of his family), I am instantaneously reminded of the fact that patriots are alive and well. My friend, and thousands like him, are willingly placing themselves in harm’s way all around the world, laboring sacrificially for the freedom and integrity that America, at its best, dares to champion.

I am free to write these paragraphs on my own personal blog only because of those past patriots who have gone before me and those current patriots who protect me. I feel inseparably connected to their character and am ever grateful for their bravery. In short, their spirit of patriotism inspires me to love my country, its ideals, and its nobler principles.

I hope that what I have just written will help you to understand with greater sensitivity what I’m about to write.

As much as I love my country and as deeply as I respect its flag, I am frequently concerned about the church’s willingness (and perhaps even eagerness) to generate what I perceive to be a dangerous fusion of patriotism and discipleship. In the American church’s zeal to create what might be described as a nationalistic spirituality—a spirituality in which one can carry a cross in one arm and an American flag in the other—we have produced a “theology of the state” in which discipleship to Jesus Christ is inappropriately measured by the degree to which it produces good Americans (good citizens).

I am not suggesting, of course, that good discipleship and good citizenship are mutually exclusive. After all, history has proven time and time again that cross-carrying has a way of producing humble and selfless people (which has been crucial in the development of America’s moral center). My concern, however, is that Jesus never called people to a governmentally-defined citizenship. Nor did he establish the church as a bastion of nationalism. Rather, Jesus called (and calls) us into a new Kingdom—one that doesn’t negate our national identity but transcends it, thereby helping us to live in a transformed relationship with both nation and world.

Put simply, in the Kingdom inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the water of baptism is thicker even than the blood of the patriots. In that regard, our covenant relationship with the Christ-follower in Iraq is more defining for us than our connection with the American agnostic who is living right next door.

This Sunday, many churches will not think very deeply about the complexity and the importance of these realities. All across the land, American flags will be an eagerly-accepted portion of Sunday’s liturgical environment, as will be the pledge of allegiance and, in some cases, the national anthem. Am I suggesting that this is somehow unforgivable or unredeemable? Of course not. I do pray, however, that, during its 4th of July services, the Church does not lose sight of the fact that Trinitarian worship always bears witness to the Way of Christ—a Way that cannot be linked to any one nation’s interests nor contained by any one nation’s boundaries.

Back in the early 1990’s, I served a church in North Carolina that was 9 miles north of Fort Bragg. The congregation there was replete with current and former soldiers. The spirit of patriotism in that place was understandably strong, as was evidenced by the large American flag that was prominently located just inches from the altar.

One day, a faithful member of that church came to see me in the sanctuary. She was the well-educated, fifty-four-year-old wife of a career military man, and she was every bit as patriotic as her husband was. That day in the sanctuary, she was troubled about something.

After some pleasant conversation, she arrived at the heart of the matter. “I want to tell you something,” she said to me, “and I don’t want you to judge me for saying it.”

“O.K.,” I responded. “I promise that I won’t judge you.”

“Well,” she said, “it really troubles me to have THAT in our sanctuary.” She pointed to the altar space.

“Do you mean the altar,” I asked.

“No,” she said, “not the altar. The flag. I want you to know that, every Sunday, it bothers me to have the American flag so close to our altar.”

I had never encountered this sentiment before. I was momentarily dumbfounded and speechless.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I love my country and its flag. I really do. My husband has spent his entire life in the military because he loves this country so deeply and I’m proud of him for doing that. In fact, I can’t sing a single verse of ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ without weeping.”

“O.K.,” I said, “so what’s the problem with the flag?”

“Well,” she said, “my husband and I have lived all over the world because of his military service. That means that I have friends all over the world. My two very best friends are from Germany and Italy. They come to visit me every year.”

I still wasn’t getting the point.

“When they come to visit me,” she continued, “I want them to come to church with me, since both of them are faithful Christians.”

All that I could think to do in the moment was to affirm her desire to invite people to church!

“Don’t you get it,” she said to me. “When I bring my German and Italian friends to this church, I want them to see the cross and the pulpit and the Bible and the stained-glass windows. But I don’t want them to see the American flag and the altar right next to one another.”

“Why would that be such a problem,” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “by putting them right next to one another, we change the meaning of both the cross and the flag. The flag can help us to remember our national identity, which is really important to me. But the cross is bigger than that. The cross is about salvation. It’s about eternal life. It’s about the whole world.”

She paused to reflect upon what she had just said.

“I guess it’s like this,” she continued. “When my foreign Christian friends walk into my church’s sanctuary, I don’t want them to feel like foreigners any more. I want them to feel like they’ve come to a home away from home. I want them to know that they are part of us.”

That conversation, which made its way into the journal that I kept at the time, initiated a struggle within me that continues even to this day. It is a struggle to discern the nature of patriotism, the nature of discipleship, the difference between the two, and the dangers of synthesizing them too quickly. I don’t want it to be a struggle that alienates those of you who might disagree with me on this issue. But I do want it to be a redemptive struggle—one that compels me to think more clearly about everything from nationalism to liturgical imagery.

At any rate, that conversation from the early 1990’s is part of the reason why my favorite patriotic hymn is “This Is My Song.” It is a hymn that enables me to be patriotic enough to acknowledge that “this is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.”

At the same time, the hymn helps me to guard against nationalistic idolatry by forcing me to remember that “other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

May God bless America where it warrants a divine blessing. May God bless all the world’s nations in the same fashion. And may God bless the Church around the world as it continues to bear witness to the Kingdom in which our defining citizenship is to be found.

One of my core theological convictions is that humankind has been created with an innate desire for relationship and meaningful connection. No matter whether one is an introvert or extrovert, a homebody or a social butterfly, somewhere beneath the layers of one’s unique personality beats the heart of a very particular desire—a desire to know and to be known, to love and to be loved. It is precisely this relational impulse that inspires the cultivation of friendships and romance, the accommodation of spontaneous conversation and impromptu interaction, and, most certainly, the pursuit of authentic community.

As a Christ-follower, I conceptualize this ontological impulse toward relationship in a very particular fashion. I see it as nothing less than a portion of the Imago Dei—the Image of God—finding expression in the nooks and crannies of the human pilgrimage. An atheist or an agnostic humanist, by contrast, may be inclined to interpret the human desire for connection as the inevitable flourishing of a functional socialization or an outgrowth of one’s biologically-fueled emotional yearnings. For the Christ-follower, however, humankind’s relational proclivities are something more than anthropological happenstance. In fact, among people of faith, these relational proclivities are seen as nothing less than the handiwork of a relentlessly-relational God who breathed into us, not only a breath of life, but also a yearning for intimacy.

Not long ago, I encountered a song that has helped me to think even more deeply about the urgency and theological significance of humankind’s hunger for connection. While the song to which I am referring did not emerge from a specifically Christocentric perspective, it speaks volumes about our culture’s attentiveness to a spiritual longing that can be felt even when it cannot be named: a longing for transformational intimacy and holistic relationship.

“The Shins” is an American indie rock band that has been around since the mid-1990’s. The band’s recently-released album, “Port of Morrow,” is as lyrically clever as it is musically compelling. For me, the high mark of the album is the hauntingly evocative song, “September.” (To watch the video for “September,” click HERE.) Written by James Mercer (The Shins’ lead vocalist and guitarist), “September” calls to mind a love relationship that is transitioning from playfulness to profundity—or, as the song’s title suggests, a love that is moving from summer breeziness to autumnal complexity.

“September” begins in the strange territory of ancient Greece:

Into this strange elastic world
Pontus kindly gave up a pearl
Of his eternal stone and mud
Ain’t she lovely bone and blood

“Pontus” (Greek for “sea”) is a term that has both geographical and mythological significance. Geographically, Pontus was a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Mythologically, Pontus was a Greek pre-Olympian sea God. The reference to Pontus giving up “a pearl” is a clear reference to Aphrodite who, we are told, emerged as a pearl from the foam of the sea.

The exaggerated imagery tells us that the love relationship at the heart of this song is not to be taken lightly. In the eyes of the songwriter, the relationship about which he writes is the stuff of divinity and mythological grandeur. Far from a maudlin overture, these words reflect the heart of a contemplative lover who recognizes that this “strange elastic world” has pulled him into a relationship that seems to be imbued with an eternal significance.

Born of the sea
A thousand miles away from me
A court of angels, a ward of the sun
A future forming, a curse undone

Who is this one who has been “born of the sea, a thousand miles away from me?” Is it Aphrodite? Or is the songwriter speaking now of some other “goddess” he has grown to love? Could the songwriter be moving from ancient Greece to present day?

These lyrics compel us to visualize the people with whom we share intimate relationship—the people we love, the people we trust. The lyrics draw our thoughts to the people in our journey who have emerged from the sea of our shared humanness in order to become a “ward of the sun” for us. Their lives shine upon ours, thereby undoing the “curse” of isolation and ushering us into a “future forming.”

Under our softly burning lamp she
Takes her time
Telling stories of our possible lives
And love is the ink in the well when her body writes

Perhaps the deepest portion of the human hunger for relationship is the desire for some new narrative that will bring to us a fresh way of telling the story of what our life means. Holistic relationship has a way of generating new stories, new poetry, new energizing narratives. The songwriter evokes this reality when he speaks of a loved one who concerns herself with “telling the stories of our possible lives” and writing those stories with the mystical ink found in the well of a devoted heart.

I’ve been selfish and full of pride
She knows deep down there’s a little child
But I’ve got a good side to me as well
And it’s that she loves in spite of everything else

Can one ever dare to love another without an ever-deepening attentiveness to one’s own brokenness and failure? Such honest self-inventory is part of the very nature of authentic love, is it not? Authentic love unsettles, inspiring both an honest confession and a passionate desire for sanctification—a passionate desire, in other words, to become something better than what we are. We seek this sanctification, not because we feel compelled to earn the love of someone dear to us, but because that love has already been offered to us (“in spite of everything else”), and we want to live a life that honors that unearned embrace.

A song in the tree has distracted her mind
Some other curious form of life
Has made its presence to her known
And she coos so gently, soft and low

Which one of us has not been distracted by some “song in the tree” that inspired us to look away from the things that matter most? Which one of us has not “cooed” over things that may not deserve to be cooed over? And yet, our deepest relationships have a way of patiently accommodating such distractions until the song in the tree fades and all that remains is the song in the heart.

Her shining face in a million reflections
On tiny raindrops that fall in a veil
Over our city like notes from above
It overwhelms me, just ain’t that tough

Its not that the darkness can’t touch our lives
I know it will in time, but she’s no ordinary valentine
And know when the sun goes down she sheds a darling light

The songwriter takes us beyond narcissistic obsession and “ordinary valentines” to a love that produces light and overcomes darkness. It is a love that falls like both gentle raindrops and overwhelming music. It is a love that can both radiate in a single face and cover an entire city. It is a love that illuminates even in those moments when darkness touches a life.

When I listen to this song, I am reminded that we are at our most spiritual when we are cultivating relationships that are big like the sea and gentle like soft raindrops; relationships that are mutually sacrificial and far too bright to be overcome by nighttime and shadows; relationships that tell new “stories of our possible lives” and that create new poetry with the ink of outpoured love.

Such relationships are possible, not because of our capacity to love (which is notoriously unreliable), but because of the indefatigable grace of the One who created us to need one another and who stubbornly refuses to allow our moments of hatred to have the final word. In the fullness of time, this One willingly “gave up a pearl,” becoming vulnerably and radically incarnate in “lovely bone and blood.”

In the light of such profligate love, how can I not hear in “September” the beating of a divine heart, whether the songwriter is aware of that rhythm or not?

Having just returned home from spending a couple of days under the tutelage of Leonard Sweet, my thoughts are swirling around the question of what it means to be IN but not OF what Sweet describes as a T.G.I.F. world (Twitter, Google, iPhone, Facebook). The danger of this T.G.I.F. world, of course, is its moral neutrality, or, perhaps more accurately, its moral ambivalence. As Sweet rightly articulated in a recent lecture, “Satan is as proficient in the use of T.G.I.F. as anyone.”

As I reflect on my own journey with Facebook and Twitter, I am compelled to confess that, more than once, I have fallen into the narcissistic patterns that these particular modes of communication often nurture. I have convinced myself, for example, that the content of my lunch or dinner is newsworthy enough to share; that my frustration over a mundane matter warrants a public hearing; or that my joke is simply far too funny to be kept to myself. Having an instantaneous audience is a seductive prospect, one that often inspires even the best of us to lower the bar concerning communicational boundaries.

Easily forgotten is the fact that Facebook and Twitter are without the interpretive nuances of tone, facial expression, and body language. A playfully sarcastic comment, minus the buffer of a smile or a wink, can land upon a reader’s heart as an insensitive barb. (There exists plenty of emotional ground, after all, that emoticons simply cannot cover.) Also frequently overlooked is the varying degree of relational depth represented by one’s collection of Facebook friends and Twitter followers. A polemical political or theological opinion on a divisive issue may be taken in stride by one’s relatives. Casual acquaintances, on the other hand, may be utterly (and painfully) alienated by what they perceive to be a callous and arrogant disregard for other viewpoints.

To be fair, however, I must also acknowledge that I experience some of my most playful and rewarding connections in the cyber-chambers of Facebook and Twitter. (In what other context could I possibly find the episcopal leaders in my life interacting with my childhood friends in a threaded conversation?!). Moreover, some of my most substantive theological dialogues these days occur, not in church offices or sanctuaries, but in the Facebook message center. And when it comes to daily chuckles inspired by the wit of friends and colleagues, there is no better resource than the social networking websites.

If, then, the social networking websites have potential for both communal edification and communal destruction (building up and tearing down), those of us who are Christ-followers are left with the very specific and critical challenge of reflecting upon what it means to subordinate even our usage of Facebook and Twitter to the transforming Lordship of Jesus. To put it differently, how might the Christ-follower’s presence in social networking create more light than heat, more windows than walls, and more mutual respect than reciprocal resentment?

This question cannot be adequately addressed in a single blog post. But these are some of the convictions that represent my personal starting point:

When I move in the direction of humor in the social networking websites, I want to be certain that my humor is grounded in playful incongruities and random absurdities rather than personal insults and particularized belittlement. All too frequently, I have utilized humor as a communicational camouflage in order to validate a disparaging and demeaning perspective. Such perspectives, quite frankly, are far better dealt with in the whispers of prayer than they are in the pages of Facebook.

If I am sharing a personal detail about my life, my joys, and my struggles, I want to be certain that it is an appropriate expression of self-revelation and not a manifestation of a narcissistic need to be coddled, pitied, or celebrated. As I look back through some of my Facebook posts, it becomes clear to me how easy it is to cross the line that exists between playful (or prayerful) self-revelation and a self-aggrandizing display of personal matters that demand a far more intimate audience.

If I am articulating an opinion on a matter that is controversial, I want to make certain that my tone is one of humility rather than bumptiousness. As convinced as I may be that I am right about something, does my tone convey my willingness to acknowledge the possibility that I am wrong? And am I venturing into subject matter that demands something more than the kind of “bumper sticker theology” and “sound bite philosophizing” that Facebook and Twitter invite? It is incumbent upon me to wrestle with these questions before posting a viewpoint that might very well become the only lens through which people in the social networking websites might view me, thereby compromising the holistic nature of my witness. Perhaps the most common form of idolatry in the human pilgrimage, after all, is the eagerness to bow at the altar of one’s own opinions. I wonder how frequently I have utilized the social networking websites as a means of self-genuflection in this regard.

If I am posting about my marriage, or if I am communicating with someone of the opposite sex, I want to make certain that I am doing nothing to cheapen or diminish the marital covenant in which I live. Likewise, as I navigate my way through the social network, I do not want to post anything that would trivialize or denigrate my friendships, my family relationships, and my collegial acquaintances.

Most of all, I want to make certain that there is no inconsistency whatsoever between who I am in the pew or pulpit and who I am in the post or tweet, so that even my social networking might bear witness to who it is that occupies the throne of my heart.

Do you consider yourself to be a dreamer? By dreamer here, I do not simply mean one who engages in the literal dreams of nighttime sleep. I also mean the figurative dreaming that some people seem to be particularly gifted to do. As I see it, a dreamer is a person with a particularly vivid imagination who pays attention the strange things that other people do not see; who considers possibilities that other people tend to overlook; and who generates ideas that other people often dismiss as unrealistic and untenable. A dreamer is a sort of visionary who glimpses reality with a lens far different than the one formed by a desire to perpetuate a comfortable status quo.

Based upon that definition, would you consider yourself to be a dreamer?

I don’t know if I am a dreamer any longer or not, but I think that I started out as one. In fact, I spent a good portion of my childhood dreaming up imaginary scenarios for myself in which to play. Many of those imaginary scenarios were based upon my favorite television shows. One day, I would pretend to be Matt Dillon, the heroic marshal from “Gunsmoke.” But just when I had my holster and cowboy hat in place, I would pause to read a comic book, and then I wouldn’t want to be a cowboy anymore. I’d want to be Batman. So I’d take off the holster and put on my Batman mask. But as soon as I fastened my utility belt, an episode of “Star Trek” would appear on the television, and then I wouldn’t want to be Batman any longer. I’d want to be captain James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the Starship Enterprise.

A good portion of my childhood was spent in this playful schizophrenia, moving quickly and effortlessly from one imaginative context to another, one character to another. It was in the midst of one of those imaginative contexts that I came to the dinner table one evening wearing a black vest and a plastic futuristic pistol at my side. My mother said to me, “Who are you supposed to be tonight?”

“Well,” I said, “if you must know, I’m Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon. It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.” To which my mother responded with these exact words: “Eric, how in the world did you become such a dreamer?”

Children make for good dreamers. Children dream more imaginatively than anyone else. But, sadly, we tend to grow out of our capacity for imaginative dreaming as we age, don’t we? We allow ourselves to do that, I think, because we know very well that the world can be hard on adult dreamers. Adult dreamers are looked upon as impractical and irrelevant. Sometimes they are seen as a threat because they see things differently than other people. Sometimes we even go so far as to kill our adult dreamers because we want so desperately to be rid of them and their strange ideas.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a dreamer. He dreamed of a world of racial equality in which people would be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. He was killed for that dream.

People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie Ten Boom were dreamers. During the Second World War, they dared to dream of a Germany that would stand against the evils perpetuated by the Nazi regime. Corrie Ten Boom was imprisoned in a concentration camp for her dream. Bonhoeffer was hanged for his.

In the Old Testament, Joseph was a dreamer. He was a young man who was prone to peculiar visions of an alternative but divinely preferred future into which his family and the people of Israel were moving. But his brothers hated him for his dreaming. They saw his dreaming an effort on Joseph’s part to claim dominion over them. And so, one day, the brothers ambushed Joseph, threw him into a pit, and then sold him to some travelers who took him as a slave into Egypt.

Joseph’s story reminds us that the human penchant for dismissing dreamers is nothing new. It was happening even in Old Testament times, even in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even then, the world could be hard on dreamers. Even then, dreamers like Joseph often found themselves violently dismissed because people wanted so desperately to be rid of them and their strange and threatening ideas.

There was another dreamer. His name was Jesus of Nazareth. He dared to dream of a kingdom in which prostitutes were valued as much as the temple priests; a kingdom in which the face of God could be discerned in the faces of the poor, the broken, and the marginalized; a kingdom in which rebirth and transformation were doorways into the salvation of God. Where did that dream lead him? It led him to a rugged cross where he bled and died for the sake of the world.

Dreamers often have important things to say, things that other people will never dare to say. But the world can be painfully inhospitable to dreamers. Sometimes we even nail our adult dreamers to a cross because we want so desperately to remove them from the conversation.

I was once a part of a church that had a dreamer in it. Her name was Olivia, and she was notorious for her dreams and visions and her willingness to talk about them amidst a congregation that had grown impatient with her impracticality and her penchant for mystical metaphors. One day at a Bible study, Olivia spoke up. “I had a dream last night,” she said.

“OK, Olivia, tell us about your dream.” (That was what I SAID, but what I THOUGHT was this: “Olivia, we only have a half hour left in this Bible study, and we don’t have time to waste on your nonsensical dreams, which I’m sure have nothing at all to do with the subject matter of our study.”)

“Well,” she said, “in the dream, hundreds of children of all different colors were standing outside our church building, pounding on the doors to get inside. But inside the church, all of us were dancing to music that was so loud that we couldn’t hear the pounding. The children were pounding on the doors to get inside, and we weren’t listening to their cries.”

“When I woke up after the dream,” Olivia said, “my pillow was wet with tears.”

“OK, Olivia, thanks for that.” (Thinking to myself, “Can I please get back to my lesson plan now?”)

In my mind, you see, I had already dismissed Olivia. As quickly as Joseph’s brothers had dismissed him in the Old Testament, so did I dismiss Olivia because her dreams and visions were an inconvenience to me.

The very next day, two youth in the community committed suicide independently. One was 19 the other was 17. Both of them were alienated from their family, and neither one of them had a connection to a church. As soon as I heard the news, I thought about Olivia’s dream—a dream about children pounding on the doors of the church, crying to get inside and not being heard.

I thought to myself in that moment, “It’s time for me to listen to the dreamer more attentively, because she’s seeing the things of God.”