How should we live? (Final reflections on Luke 15)

After five months of living in Romania, the honeymoon was over. Though I loved the adventure of living overseas, the newness, wonder and excitement were gone. I missed home. I missed driving my car. I missed American efficiency, American food, and watching Star Trek in English,not in badly dubbed German with Romanian subtitles. I missed going to football games, and most of all, I missed my friends and family. At times I felt like an alien on another planet. I missed fitting into my culture and being “in the know.”

But if I am honest with myself, I have to admit that I still experience, to some degree, that same sense of alienation even now that I live back in the USA. I have longings that go unfulfilled and expectations that remain unmet. I experience disappointment and heartache no matter where I live.

Living overseas gives one a certain “distance” from which to observe people. When I lived and worked amidst the Romanian people, I saw and heard them express the same sense of alienation.

But when I inhaled the rush of color that descended upon our city each Autumn, or stood in awe of the view from atop the snow-covered Transylvanian Alps, or when I laughed with friends or experienced the presence of God during worship or prayer, I got a taste of something that I could only describe as "home."

The Germans have a word for this universal experience. They call it sehnsucht. We don't have a word for it in English. More than nostalgia, sehnsucht denotes a deep homesickness or longing, but with transcendent overtones.

The writer best known for speaking on this "spiritual homesickness" was C.S. Lewis. In one of his essays (I think this is from The Weight of Glory), he describes these experiences as "the scent of a flower we have not seen, notes to a tune we have not heard, and news from a country we have not visited."

At some level, all of us are like the rebellious younger son in the third parable of Luke 15. We've all wandered away. We're all exiles looking for a home that seems to evade us.The parable in ends with a feast. A celebration over the fact that the lost, wandering, younger brother is finally home. Sadly, the feast is darkened by the fact that the older, obedient son will not join the party. The imagery evoked here is found throughout the Bible: heaven is pictured, not as a place of empty moralism or wild rebellion, but as a feast, a banquet of rich foods.

The film that captures all of this so powerfully is "Babette's Feast." The film is based on the short story by Danish writer Isak Dinesen, who was influenced by the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of the "aesthetic" and "ethical" approches to living. The characters in the film represent those who try to live out one or the other of these approaches to life. It ends with a lavish banquet where members of a strict, lifeless, and bland religious sect dine with a great general who chose the path of worldly success. He wonders if he missed out on what really mattered in life.

Under the influence of the warmth of the banquet and the sight, scent, and taste of rich foods, rivalries vanish and tensions melt away. Dour faces soften as forgiveness is offered and love and laughter flow. Finally, the general stands and offers a toast. Quoting Psalm 85, he says, "For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another."

Dinesen is hinting at a third approach to life. A place beyond the "aesthetic" and the "ethical." She hints at it in the imagery of a banquet where the diners have a momentary mystical experience when "righteousness and bliss" meet and kiss. What Dinesen's story illustrates is what Jesus' parable of the lost sons is meant to explain. Jesus is "the bread of Heaven."

In his book, The Prodigal God, author and pastor Tim Keller explains that, "both the sensual way of the younger brother and the ethical way of the older brother are spiritual dead ends. Jesus shows us that there is another way: through him. And to enter that way and to live a life based on his salvation will bring us finally to the ultimate party and feast at the end of history. We can have a fortaste of that future salvation now...a foretaste of what is to come."

ISAIAH 25:6-8

"On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine-the best of meats and the finest of wines.

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations, he will swallow up death forever.

The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the digrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken."

How should we live? (part 2 of 3 reflections on Luke 15)

In my last post, I explained how two common approaches to life, what the philosopher Kierkegaard called the "aesthetic" and "ethical", were dismissed by Jesus as inadequate. In fact, his approach to life was so different that Roman citizens referred to the first Christians as "atheists." This is difficult for us to grasp in the 21st century but consider the following: If you were living in the Roman empire in the first century and met a Christian and you asked, "Where is your temple?", the response would be, "We don't have a temple?" If you asked, "Well, what about your priests, where do they labor and where do they perform your sacrifices?", the answer would be, "We don't have priests and there are no sacrifices." The Christians' understanding of spiritual reality was so radical, so different from the norm that there was no "box" for it. Religion, as it was practiced then and as it is still practiced today, focused on doing something to merit God's favor and obeying to get in right standing with God. Obedience led to blessing and favor. Disobedience led to condemnation. The right sacrifice and the right behavior led to divine favor. Jesus, however, introduced something different. Something that could not be labeled as religion.

We see this in the New Testament accounts of Jesus, where it is the religiously observant people who are offended by Jesus and the irreligious people who are attracted to him. Whenever Jesus encounters a religious person and a racial outcast (John 3-4), a political outcast(Luke 19), or a sexual outcast (Luke 7), the outcast connects with Jesus while the religiously upright person does not.

The scene in Luke 15 is typical of Jesus' encounters with religious people. They are grumbling to themselves "this man welcomes sinners, and eats with them" (Luke 15:1-2). In response to their grumbling, he tells three parables to introduce a very different understanding of spiritual reality. In the final parable, the dutiful older brother, representing the religious establishment is left outside of his Father's embrace. Ironically, it is not his sin, but his goodness that keeps him from joining the party.

Shockingly, Jesus considers religious moralism to be a particularly deadly spiritual condition. He goes so far as to say to the religious people of his day that, "the tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you" (Matthew 21:31).

What Jesus offers is life in the kingdom of God, not through religion, but through a relationship with Him. He offers himself as the temple to end all temples, the priest to end all priests, and the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. He sacrifices for us, offers his life for ours, paying the death penalty we owe for our sin and satisfying both the justice and mercy of God. His obedience and willingness to die in our place leads to our blessing and favor. His offer to us of a flourishing life in his kingdom as his lifelong apprentices leads to transformation that is not a result of our trying to earn anything but is the result of His Spirit at work in us, changing us from the inside out.

How should we live? (Part one of three reflections on Luke 15)

Have you seen the film Chocolat? It tells the tale of a woman who moves to a village in the french countryside to open a chocolate shop at the beginning of Lent. The townspeople, particularly the mayor, are concerned about her arrival. They live a life of strict moral diligence and don't know what to do with this woman who fails to fit into their preconceived notions of a life well-lived.

The film deals with the questions of how one should live their life. Like so many other films, books, and plays, it deals with two approaches to life that the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard calls the "aesthetic" and the "ethical."

The aesthetic approach to life is a life of sensual indulgence, a life of freedom from the confines of traditional morality. A life of radical independence, self-expression, and self-discovery.

The ethical approach to life is a life of moral diligence, a life of dutiful obedience to standards of right and wrong. A life of discipline, rigor and conformity to tradition and religion.

So much of what I seen playing out in our culture seems to divide along these lines. Our country seems to be growing more and more secular and more and more religious at the same time. On one side are those who are weary of religious people imposing their views on everyone else. On the other side are those who want to rescue our nation from the encroaching secularism by "taking back the culture" and returning to traditional morality.

This division between the aesthetic and the ethical is nothing new. It's even addressed in the Bible. This morning, with my senior pastor out of town, I was invited to take the pulpit and give the sermon. My text was Luke 15. In this chapter, Jesus is surrounded by a group of irreligious people, people from the "wrong side of the tracks", so to speak. A group of religious leaders are also present and they're mumbling to themselves, wondering why Jesus would have anything to do with these people. In response to their grumbling, Jesus tells them three parables. Though all three parables are similar, the third one is unique in that the two main characters, a wild younger brother and a dutiful older brother, represent the people in the crowd. The younger brother represents the "aesthetic" approach to life and the older brother represents the "ethical" approach.

Surprisingly, Jesus singles out both approaches to life as inadequate. He suggests something entirely different. He offers a way of life that is neither religious nor rebellious. A way of life that is neither strict and rigorous, nor lax and self-indulgent. A way of life that is not a balance between two extremes but an entirely different approach altogether. An approach so unique that the ancient Romans called the first Christians "athiests" because they didn't fit into any of their pre-conceived understanding of religion.

More on this later in the week.

Living beyond the ribbon of time

The redhead's recent post has me thinking about time.  Life has been good around our home but death has crept into the corners through the television updates on the passing of numerous celebrities, through the one-year anniversary of my father-in-law's passing, and through the recent death of an old acquaintance, a young thirty-something father of two who's body gave way to a long battle with stomach cancer.

Time passes so quickly.  News of death and loss makes me want to do everything I can to live in the present as fully as possible, not hindered by past mistakes, missed opportunities, or wounds, not distracted by anxious concern over what may or may not happen in the future.  The past is gone and the future doesn't exist yet.  All we have is "the now."

The ancient Greeks had two words for time:  chronos and kairos.  Chronos corresponds to the English word for time.  It has do to with measured time:  hours, minutes, and seconds.  It is represented by clocks and calenders, daytimers and blackberries.  It's all about productivity, efficiency, and punctuality.  Kairos is different.  It has to do with important events, timeless moments, glimpses of transcendence, and heart stopping encounters.  

One writer describes it this way:  "We exist in chronos, we long for kairos.  Chronos requires speed so life is not wasted; kairos requires patience so that life can be enjoyed.  Chronos drives us forward to get things done; kairos allows us to relish the opportunity to do them.  We perform in chronos, but we truly live in kairos." (Gerald Sitser, The Will of God as a Way of Life).

There are moments where we do have to focus on productivity and efficiency.  And there are times when we have to hurry.  But life is lived best from kairos, not chronos.  If we're not careful chronos can enslave us to a barren busyness that drains us of the passion and wonder of life.  Moreover, it deafens our ears to the voice of God who calls to us in kairos moments where heaven and earth intersect.

Life is lived best when we slow down enough to pay attention and enjoy the ordinary kairos moments:  things like laughter with friends, a good meal, throwing the best of ourselves into our jobs with passion, catching a great wave on a surfboard, receiving the bread and wine at the communion table, and unhurried time with our spouse.  

Life is lived best when we make it an art.  Life is lived best when we ignore the busyness, the push and pull of life, and we stop to enjoy the present.  Life is at its best when we live beyond the ribbon of time and the tick tick tick of the clock.

Happy 2nd Anniversary Sweetie!

Two years ago today. Wow.

Hope we'll be making music and still going strong when we're old and grey like this couple. They've been married 62 years and played an impromptu recital together in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic shortly before his 90th birthday.

Here's to growing old together.

Up for adventure

The redhead and I caught the movie Up yesterday afternoon.

I can't remember the last time I was so deeply affected by a film. Within the first five minutes, my eyes grew wet with tears and by the end of the movie, I was a blubbering idiot in desperate need of an action film to redeem my manhood.

Stories have great power to move us, even animated ones. In a recent interview, Up writer and director Pete Docter said, "There's something of the divine in the way we respond to stories and how we're created as people—that we're so driven by relationship that even when we know we're just looking at a bunch of drawings, we still connect emotionally." Boy, do we ever! Even when we're not aware of it, our longing to connect with others moves in powerful ways.

The film had so many great themes: the consequences of misplaced priorities, the danger of devoting your life to the wrong things, the beauty and simplicity of an ordinary life, and our deep need to connect with others. I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet so I won't give away too much here. Check it out for yourself. Just be sure to bring a box of kleenex.

Work is a rubber ball

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air.  You name them-work, family, health, friends, and spirit-and you are keeping all of these in the air.  You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball.  If you drop it, it will bounce back.  But the other four balls-family, health, friends, and spirit-are made of glass.  If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered.  They will never be the same.  You must understand that and strive for balance in your life." (Brian Dyson).

As much as I think balance is a never ending quest for the unattainable, I find myself resonating deeply with this quote.  I can drop the work ball and survive but if I drop one of the others, then life will never be the same.

What about you? Can you relate?  How do you keep from dropping the wrong ball?