The Power of the Powerless: Living in the Truth

Studying communism in the Eastern Bloc and its dissident movement of the 1970s and 1980s (which culminated in the Velvet Revolution of '89) taught me a lot about the rigidity of religion and rejecting religion in favor of spiritual reformation.

Communism was/is a secular religion. Actually, all ideologies are forms of religion (even western liberal capitalism, with its complete faith in the invisible hand of the market. In communism, man is God. In capitalism, the economy is God). True believers of these ideologies require total submission and acceptance of the party line. There is no room for listening to other perspectives. If you are open to other perspectives, then you are suspect and perceived as a threat and a heretic (This has been true both of Eastern communists and Western capitalists). Religious power structures work the same way that political/ideological power structures work. It's all about the obeying the party line (playing the game), maintaining outward appearances (often divorced from reality), and pretending that black is white: pretending that bondage is freedom.

Vaclav Havel is my favorite anti-communist dissident. Both because he was incredibly smart and articulate, but also because he was consistently gracious to his opponents - those trapped in the oppressive power structure. He was known for bringing out cups of tea to the secret policemen who were assigned to watch him, and asking them if they needed anything. Even after years in prison, he maintained this attitude. In 1978, Havel wrote an essay called "The Power of the Powerless" in which he exposed the hypocrisy and pretenses of the Czech regime, and how the Czech people had acquiesced and enabled it by 'playing the game' and 'living the lie.' Even though the following excerpt describes the political-social power structure of communist Czechoslovakia, I believe it also describes religious power structures to a tee:
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"The greengrocer had to put the slogan ("Workers of the World Unite") in his window, therefore, not in the hope that someone might read it or be persuaded by it, but to contribute, along with thousands of other slogans, to the panorama that everyone is very much aware of. This panorama, of course, has a subliminal meaning as well: it reminds people where they are living and what is expected of them. It tells them what everyone else is doing, and indicates to them what they must do as well, if they don't want to be excluded, to fall into isolation, alienate themselves from society, break the rules of the game, and risk the loss of their peace and tranquility and security. . . .

Let us now imagine that one day something in our greengrocer snaps and he stops putting up the slogans merely to ingratiate himself. He stops voting in elections he knows are a farce. He begins to say what he really thinks at political meetings. And he even finds the strength in himself to express solidarity with those whom his conscience commands him to support. In this revolt the greengrocer steps out of living within the lie. He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth. . .

The bill is not long in coming. He will be relieved of his post as manager of the shop and transferred to the warehouse. His pay will be reduced. His hopes for a holiday in Bulgaria will evaporate. His children's access to higher education will be threatened. His superiors will harass him and his fellow workers will wonder about him. Most of those who apply these sanctions, however, will not do so from any authentic inner conviction but simply under pressure from conditions, the same conditions that once pressured the greengrocer to display the official slogans. They will persecute the greengrocer either because it is expected of them, or to demonstrate their loyalty, or simply as part of the general panorama, to which belongs an awareness that this is how situations of this sort are dealt with, that this, in fact, is how things are always done, particularly if one is not to become suspect oneself. The executors, therefore, behave essentially like everyone else, to a greater or lesser degree: as components of the post-totalitarian system, as agents of its automatism, as petty instruments of the social auto-totality.

Thus the power structure, through the agency of those who carry out the sanctions, those anonymous components of the system, will spew the greengrocer from its mouth. The system, through its alienating presence in people, will punish him for his rebellion. It must do so because the logic of its automatism and self-defense dictate it. The greengrocer has not committed a simple, individual offense, isolated in its own uniqueness, but something incomparably more serious. By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. . . .

The original and most important sphere of activity, one that predetermines all the others, is simply an attempt to create and support the independent life of society as an articulated expression of living within the truth. In other words, serving truth consistently, purposefully, and articulately, and organizing this service. This is only natural, after all: if living within the truth is an elementary starting point for every attempt made by people to oppose the alienating pressure of the system, if it is the only meaningful basis of any independent act of political import, and if, ultimately, it is also the most intrinsic existential source of the "dissident" attitude, then it is difficult to imagine that even manifest "dissent" could have any other basis than the service of truth, the truthful life, and the attempt to make room for the genuine aims of life."
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The power of the powerless is to live a life of truth. When people don't play by the rules of religious power structures, they face many of the same repercussions listed above (well, their children's educational opportunities are not affected, but their position in the group is greatly affected). Yet, in so doing, they also present to others an example. It is possible to live within the truth. The truth of the gospel, not the lie of religion. They show that it is possible to have a faith in Christ that is greater than faith in man and his power structures.

When I was learning about Havel, I was also exiting 'the system' of institutionalized Christianity. That was around six years ago. Then, I didn't see many others who were reformationally-minded. Now, they are all over the place! Actually, they probably were then too, but I am just more aware of them now, and their numbers keep growing. So many people have begun to exit these structures, to be willing to absorb the cost of staying true to convictions that are beginning to stir within them. Jesus did not come to establish a religion or an ideology. He did not come to set up new rituals (weekly meeting - 5 songs, 40 minute lecture, prayer time, communion, whatever) for us to observe. He did not come to set up a new power structure in the name of God. No. Jesus, by nature, is the anti-thesis to power structures. He became powerless. He came to serve. He came to set us free, not to exchange one set of bondage (to sin) for another (bondage to religion). This is a spiritual reformation, another sort of Velvet Revolution. And I wonder how it will play out....

Making Room, Giving Honor

I don't know about you, but I am weary of dishonor. It does not feed or nourish. It's just a drag. It discourages, disheartens. I'm learning to make room for the failings of others. Mostly because I need room for my own failings. I'm learning to honor people who miss it, people who get it wrong. Because I miss it. I get it wrong.

I want to nourish and to be nourished. I want to look for what is good in something or someone, not what is wrong with something or someone. I do think it's important to recognize what things "shouldn't" be as well as what things "should" be. And so I want to honor those who are in the midst of processing their unique and disheartening journey, and are coming through it. I haven't walked in anyone else's shoes, so the only thing I can possibly do is give room for their critiques and extend grace to their process. There is room for disillusionment, pain and even the cynicism. Everybody's experience is different, and some to much greater degrees of pain than others. So I hope this post isn't misunderstood as a criticism, but more about what I'm learning regarding making room and giving honor.

I am just coming into a place in the journey where I am learning to love beyond all of the crap. (Forgive my crudeness). Maybe it's because God is bigger than I realized previously, and He loves us beyond all our crap. And He sees us beyond our crap. He speaks to our potential, he doesn't speak to our crap. He calls forth what we can be, what He has designed us to be. And it's this kind of love, a love full of grace and honor, that causes us to ditch our crap and become who He's designed us to be. And then we begin to see other people who are full of crap as being special treasures whom God designed, with unique talents and gifts that we treasure and value, despite all the crap. Can you see past crap into treasure? Jesus can.

I am weary of hearing about where ministers or ministries are missing it. I want to hear about where people see God at work, not where they see flesh and carnality. I want to hear about Jesus being revealed, people being healed, relationships restored, answers to prayer... Anything that testifies of His GOODNESS! It is a GOOD God we serve, after all!

Here's one: my nieces are visiting (hence no blogging) for a couple of weeks while my sister "flips" a house with my aunt. They are 10 and 12, and we've been having a great time together. After swimming in a local community pool, the oldest niece developed a rash all over her back and tummy. It was bothering her for a couple of days until it finally dawned on us to pray for her (duh). We prayed before she went to bed, the next morning it had completely disappeared. Nice one, Lord! :) Thanks! :)

I watched a movie called Half Nelson last night. With its thoroughly depressing tone, I can't recommend it. It's about a white history teacher working in the inner city. And he's got a drug problem. The movie explores many issues, but its primary message is that good and bad co-exist. A teacher with a drug problem manages to inspire some of his kids (at one point, a parent of a former student runs into him and informs him that the girl is now a history major at Georgetown). And he manages to keep one of his students away from a career in drug-pushing. Good and bad, all mixed up together. The movie presents an extreme case, but it's true of life nonetheless.

If God waited for us to be perfect, to be free from deficiencies and failures before He worked with us and through us, then we would all be screwed. (Again, sorry for the crudeness. But this is a raw sort of post). That's not to say that certain things don't need to be addressed. They do. But if I don't have relationship with certain ministers, and am not committed to lay down my life for them in love... then I am not the one to bring that correction and to speak into their lives. What I can do is to pray for them. (Sounds cliche, but it's true nonetheless). I want to make room, to give honor. This is the nature of love.

Anyway, I want to honor where I see God moving and what God has placed in others. I honor the healings and salvations that have come through certain ministries. And yet, I don't like all the mixture of Babylon I see, and the cultural grid that is part of those ministries as well. I also honor the gifts God has placed in some of these ministries' detractors. And yet, I don't like all the dishonor and hubris of pointing out others' failings. So I have to have grace for both. Because I love the Holy Spirit, and I've seen Him at work in people on both sides. I learn from both, and am inspired by both. The thing is, we all have some level of 'mixture' and some level of distortion in our lives. So, I'm learning to live with that - mostly from learning to allow myself to make mistakes and be wrong. I've never been very gracious with myself, but as I learn to, it amazingly makes me more gracious with others as well. I pray for honor and room-giving to increase in all of His people, starting with me.

More thoughts on Born Anew

"The new birth is neither a conversion to our authentic inner self nor a migration (metoikesia) of the soul into a heavenly realm, but a translation of a person into the house of God (oikos tou theou) erected in the midst of the world." -Miroslav Volf

I stumbled across this quote on a blog that's new to me: The Margins.

I really like this quote. The first part is the rejection of the humanistic, feel-good, self-actualization gospel that is so popular in American Christianity. The second part deals with a dualistic mentality. I like the assertion that it is not a "migration" but a "translation."

But it raises some questions for me. I believe God is not limited by time and space. In my paradigm, I see the heavenly (spiritual) realm transposed on the natural realm. I do not see them as separated by distance, but separated by rulership. Jesus often described the 'kingdom of God' to people after some supernatural happening, saying 'the kingdom of God has come near to you.' It seems to me that the kingdom of God describes a spiritual climate of His rule, transposed on the natural realm. So, when I was born anew, I became an active participant of that otherworldly kingdom as I became a temple of God, "erected in the midst of the world."

I have been reading (in Eph) how I am seated in Christ in heavenly places, and Paul's exhortation to seek the things of that realm rather than the things of this world (in Col). And I don't think that in order to embrace these passages of scripture, I must view it through a Platonic, dualistic, either-or grid. Nor that I must think God doesn't care about the material world in order to obey Paul's exhortation to seek the things above. Obviously not! To the contrary, God invades the natural realm because He loves His creation. So He's made us His agents of reconciliation: His temples, the carriers of His Spirit, under His rule, we are conduits of His (otherworldly) kingdom; not as initiators, but as co-operators. (Btw, I still need to read NT Wright's Surprised by Hope).

Anyway, back to the quote. How does it reconcile with Eph. in regards to being "seated with Christ in heavenly places"? What do you think?

Christ as THE Hermeneutical Source

Can I just say a hardy "Amen!" to this:
(Btw, I lifted from TSK's contribution to the missional synchroblog.)

"In his book (The Mission of God), Chris Wright draws from the gains of contextual hermeneutics "as against the rather blinkered view of theology that developed in the West since the Enlightenment, which liked to claim it was scientific, objective, rational and free from either confessional presuppositions or theological interests, theologies that declare such disinterested objectivity to be a myth - and a dangerous one in that it concealed hegemonic claims." (The Mission of God, page 42) . . to become an "interested" missiology that goes beyond contextual [and liberationist] hermeneutics by offering to subsume both readings into itself.

Chris puts forward a missional hermeneutic as a contextual, holistic, coherent framework that finds its center in Christ himself who opened the minds of his disciples so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45) "In other words, Jesus himself provided the hermeneutical coherence within which all disciples must read these texts, that is, in the light of the story that leads up to Christ (messianic reading) and the story that leads on from Christ (missional reading). That is the story that flows from the mind and purpose of God in all the Scriptures for all the nations. That is a missional hermeneutic of the whole Bible." (The Mission of God, page 41)

Finally! Someone really smart is saying that! If you can find someone who sounds really smart to say things like that, western church leaders might listen. :P

This is what I feel is happening to me as of late. I am reading scriptures I have read many times, and yet Christ is opening my mind to understand them and "see" or "perceive" the truths of the gospel. I'm finding that the basic gospel is a different and much fuller picture when Jesus tells it (as compared to the way it was taught to me in the pentecostal/charismatic stream). When He opens your mind to understand the scriptures, there's a lot more to the gospel than salvation, deliverance and healing (the sozo gospel - it is that, but more).

What's interesting is that it has been within my asking Him questions about my responsibility/role/part in His mission (spurred on by others posting on the priesthood of all believers, and a desire to be a conduit of heaven to earth, serve as He served/serves). I hope to continue to post on it, but feel a lack of vocabulary right now to describe what I'm "seeing." So we'll see if I get the words...

I'm coming out of a very long, difficult, trying, desperate season and coming into a vibrant season of His manifest presence and revelation. Thank God! I didn't know if this day would ever come!!! (Seriously). I embrace all of His seasons, but thank God! I love His manifest presence, and to hear His voice so easily and clearly again! Thank you, thank you, thank you God! :)

[And a special shout-out to Kingdom Grace for her contribution. If you only read one post in the missional synchroblog - it should be this one. It's profoundly simple, yet paradigm-shifting.]

It's all real

I just learned from Jeff (via Brother Maynard), that 'born again' is not an accurate translation, but rather 'born from above' or 'born anew' is more appropriate. 'Born from above' makes so much more sense. Especially in light of having been crucified with Him, buried with Him and raised up with Him:

"Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Col 3:1-3

"...even when we were dead in our transgressions, (God) made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus..." Eph 2:5-6

Born from above. In Christ. Living from heaven to earth. Teach me how to live in the substance of this gospel, Lord. It's all real.

Buried, Raised and Ascended!

I linked to Charis a few posts back, sharing her insights on the priesthood of all believers. She has recently posted an update, and I thought it appropriate to quote here on my blog, since it completes my earlier post "Buried and Raised Up." I love how we in the Body complete each other, so that together, we are a whole. I recommend reading Charis's entire post, but here's the meat of it:

"Most of us are familiar with His substitionary death for us by which our sins are atoned for & have therefore been united with Him in that dimension of His ministry, as a reality & not as mere doctrine. I have only recently been discovering union with Him in the other aspects of the fulness of His work for & in us, again as living realities & not empty doctrines I agree with mentally: His identificational death by which I was crucified with Him, His resurrection by which His resurrection life lives in & pushes through me…and most of all His ascension, by which I have been seated with Him in the heavenly places.

Before this year I have honestly never heard these aspects of the gospel, that I was invited into a living union with Christ to this extent of being seated with Him in the heavenly places. But if that’s where He is today & I am in Him it can’t be otherwise; as bizaare as it sounds, that I am presently dwelling in heaven while my physical body is here on earth, I am beginning to believe it, to believe the gospel!"

Break a Leg!

Jeff posted a great post about the difference between the tower of Babel and Jacob's ladder. To me, Babel is a picture of pride, while Jacob is a picture of humility in brokenness, having wrestled with God. As I read through the comments of Jeff's post, something struck me about our perceptions of "seeking God."

I used to think I was "seeking God" when I prayed and read the Bible, but I was too full of answers to really call it "seeking." Boy, I had answers. Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm a recovering know-it-all. Sigh. I was one of the ones with all kinds of religious pride, because I was pretty active in the prayer/Bible study/ministry areas - and God would "show up" in those times. So, by my own estimation, I had arrived! Silly me, so clueless about how God was fixing to shake me to the core. (Everything that can be shaken will be shaken... I think it says that in the Bible somewhere, so I should've seen it coming!):)

Anyway, I have since realized that God teaches me through a cyclical pattern of learning and growth - not a linear one. He goes over and over the same truths (since the gospel is actually quite simple), just deeper each time. So there is no "arrival" point, only deeper and deeper wisdom, understanding and experience of Him.

I've also learned that going deeper entails going lower. Bill Kinnon recently posted on shepherds, and said:

"The rod and staff were tools of their trade. The hook on the staff would be used to pull sheep out of danger. The rod would be used for both protection and discipline. It is said that a sheep that constantly wandered away would have a leg broken by the shepherd's use of the rod. But then the Shepherd would carry that sheep while the leg healed - taking intimate care of it during the healing process - and the sheep would become so attached to the shepherd it would never run away again."

Jesus has been my Good Shepherd. And in His goodness, He has used his rod to break my leg. And then carried me through to complete healing. (Sounds mean, but bear with me, it really was an act of mercy). When I read this on Bill's blog, a light went on for me. This describes my journey from November 2005 (when we moved to Japan) up to the present. My problem was that I continually strayed through a prideful attitude, and God always resists pride. Pride will always separate me from Him; it is the very essence of the serpent. Sometimes, a broken leg is worth the humility that comes from a season of uselessness (or functionlessness), inability, and total dependence (just needing to be carried - can't even walk for yourself)!

So anyway, I think that when God exhorts us to "seek" Him, He doesn't mean "pray more, read the Word more" or whatever other activity we can do with our hearts full of pride. Real seeking is an act of humility - with an attitude that approaches God to say, "I don't know how to do this: how to relate to a God that is Spirit and that is so unknown to me. Teach me Your ways." I thought I knew Him, and how to relate to Him, but I had only scratched the surface. Cyclical, not linear. There's always greater depths to be plumbed.