What is Real Community?

A few weeks ago my favorite TV show started a new season, The Walking Dead. It's a show about people surviving in a world of zombies. It may not seem that appealing to most folks, but the show is more about the relationships between the survivors than about gore. In the opening episode a new minor character was explaining his view of friendship in light of the zombie apocalypse. He said, "I don't have any friends. I mean I know people, they are just assholes I stay alive with. Is that other woman your friend? I used to have them, we used to watch football on Sundays. Went to church. I know I did, but I can't picture it anymore" (AMC's The Walking Dead, season 5 episode 1). This clip asks us in our current context, that is not ravaged by zombies, if we have a community as well or if we have people we just survive with. While we can take many different approaches to this question, it seems to me that German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers us a unique perspective on what it means to be community as Christians in his work Life Together.

“Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily community of many years, Christian community is solely this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”
 – Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 30

This passage from the opening chapter of Life Together illustrates Bonhoeffer’s main thrust of his definition of community that it can only exist through the mediation of Jesus Christ. He expands on this point in the following pages by describing Christians as needing others for the sake of Christ, a Christian comes to others only through Christ, and finally that we are united with Christ in eternity (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 30-31). This threefold description of what it means to be in Christian community begins with our justification. It is not done by our own merits, but through Jesus Christ alone (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 31).

This means that in the Christian community there is a continual movement of death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit works in us from the outside, deconstructing us and our self-made constructions, and giving us new life in Christ. It can then be said that Jesus on the cross is the primary moment of deconstruction, it is the moment in which we are told we do not save ourselves because it is Christ on the cross who does. Such a realization creates community because it relieves us from the expectation of performance before God, or climbing the spiritual ladder, it frees us to serve our neighbor.

From this comes Bonhoeffer’s second point, “…a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ” and our efforts to do so on our own are failures because we run into our own egos so we rely only on Christ to mediate our knowing of the other (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 32). This means that we can only experience others from Christ’s actions, not our own. We are then opened up to live, love, and serve with and for others. We are once again freed from the expectation of serving according to our egos and we are shown a way of being through Jesus’ ministry and the Holy Spirit stirring within us.

Bonhoeffer’s final point of defining a Christian community relates to the person of Jesus Christ and how we are united with him. He writes, “Third, when God’s Son took on flesh, he truly and bodily, out of pure grace, took on our being, our nature, ourselves…Wherever he is, he bears our flesh, he bears us. And, where he is, there we are too…” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 32). With this description, community becomes much more than a gathering of people, community becomes the body of Christ that lives out the life of Christ in the world. Such a community embraces the costly grace of God, clamors for the theology of the cross and resists the theology of glory, serves the neighbor, and engages life in all of its beauty and messiness.

Indeed we seek relationships out of self-serving goals (like this character's noting he gathers with people to simply survive), so it is God who mediates community for us showing us that community is not about physical connection, but instead a spiritual one. Such a community is about the Word of God in Jesus Christ, truth, light, service, and where the Spirit and Word of God in Jesus Christ rule (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 38-40). This is what Bonhoeffer envisions as being the Christian community, the spiritual community that is radically active in the world.

While we agree with Bonhoeffer and admit that this is what we strive for, we know that it is not necessarily reality because it is a hard calling! Yet, Bonhoeffer further challenges us, “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 38). This makes Christian community not something that humans must meet as if it were a law, it is the opposite. We enter into community simply by the free grace, faith, and justification from God. We are wholly undeserving of these things, but we are given it. It is God who created us to be in community and provides us such an opportunity.

Real community then is about embracing the struggle of everyday life while simultaneously living out the gospel message. For the characters in The Walking Dead, their morals and their underlying discipleship to God is tested daily by decisions to act mercifully or selfishly, emotionally or spiritually, peacefully or violently. And in these decisions their view of community and communal reality is challenged. Do we welcome this person into our group out of gain because of their skills? Or do we welcome them because that is what we do, extending hospitality and love in a dangerous world?

This reality is not so far from us is it? My wife has a thousand and one friends whom she would consider real community because they do just about anything for each other and build each other up out of love and live in service to the world. But I find myself having far fewer friends when I look at my real community. There are of people I stay alive with and know, but not many that fit into Bonhoeffer's vision of community. Now I do not lament over this, rather it opens up a perspective about how we all interact  in the world and challenges us to live out of thanksgiving to God for giving us such an opportunity. Where do you find yourself in this spectrum of community? Are your friends plentiful or just enough? Do you have real community or ones that you just live with?

May you rethink who your community is and in the process find God calling your community to more than survival.

Peace,
Tom

Online Testimony

I am going to be completely honest, I see people posting things on Facebook that make the individual seem holier than Thou. In essence, I see a lie. I know them to be deceitful, harsh, rude, and disrespectful yet they present themselves as a saint online whose life revolves around the Bible. So how far is too far when we provide testimony in our online communities? Or does it even matter? 

Perhaps this is not even a true testimony. Thomas Hoyt Jr. writes about testimony, "In different ways, testimony happens in every vital Christian community. It also happens, as we shall see, in the midst of daily life and in the life of society. In testimony, people speak truthfully about what they have experienced and seen, offering it to the community for the edification of all" (Practicing Faith, Kindle Loc. 1912). Perhaps then the sanctification of the self is not even true testimony because it does not tell the truth as it is. True testimony from this perspective might look like this, "I am dishonest, selfish, and narcissistic. I am a sinner. But God love me still..."

I am guessing that most of us will not be posting or tweeting our faults and flaws online anytime soon, but maybe we need to check ourselves before we write something online about God or make ourselves appear to be saintly. Are we really providing a true testimony? It seems to me that we need to revisit providing testimony to God throughout our lives and not just posting a picture of a sunset with a psalm. One of my friends who is a new mom was driving home and she ran into some car problems on the highway. While neither her or her son were injured, her Facebook post notified her community of friends what had happened and expressed how thankful she was to be safe and how lucky she was to be a mom. This might be the testimony we are after. A story from the randomness of life that describes what God has done (Practicing Faith, Kindle Loc. 1952).

These are just a few thoughts on the matter. I'd love to hear what you all think!

Peace, 

Tom

Fasting

This week I took up the spiritual discipline of fasting. In all honesty this is not something I have a lot of experience in. The extent of my practice in this discipline before this week has only extended to refraining from eating meat on Fridays during Lent. As you might be able to tell, fasting is not something I am used to, and in all honesty it is not something that is all that interesting to me. I love to cook and try new recipes, so the thought of abstaining from this hobby of mine seemed outrageous. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the insights I learned this week.

 

I emailed my professor for assistance before taking this on. His wisdom framed fasting as a way in which the body prays and is reminded of its limits. He also told me not to do anything too radical, rather skip a specific meal or food. With this in mind I decided to forgo lunch this week and in its place I decided to enter into a time of silence or reading as a form of prayer. I have mixed feelings about the practice of fasting after a little less than week of regular use.

This spiritual discipline was able to help me focus on my body and what my body actually needs (not necessarily food, but hydration and rest). This was accomplished through reflection and realizing that I deeply resonated with a book I am reading on spirituality, I think I know what my body needs, but I don’t. And so I took this learning to the realm of spirituality. Am I engaging my spirituality enough? Or am I settling for a mediocre form that really leads to spiritual stagnancy?

I also noticed that when I fasted during the usual lunch period I was not too terribly concerned with my hunger, but an hour or so after I found myself craving food. It got to the point where I was focusing on dinner and not the work at hand! And while this was annoying and concerning, such thinking gave way to more intentional applications of fasting. This lead me to rethink how much my body needed to eat, how much I actually ate, and how others in the world do not have nearly as much to eat.

All in all this exercise humbled me, made me aware of our culture’s infatuation with food, and helped me to appreciate how much I have been blessed with. However, I am unsure how practical this practice is for most people. I am concerned that fasting from a meal for an extended period of time may not be of any help spiritually or physically. Rather it would distract the participant from spiritual practice and focus instead on the physical needs of sustenance. So when might fasting be appropriate? It seems to me that fasting would be able to add importance to liturgical seasons. For instance, fasting on Good Friday would highlight humanity’s need for God’s grace as much as we need daily bread and water.

Peace,
Tom

Spiritual Discipline: Walking with a Psalm

In one of my courses at Luther Seminary the class is charged with experimenting in a multitude of spiritual practices. Each week we are to try on of the three or four suggested practices with the hopes of finding one that works best for at this point in life. I thought reflecting on these exercises might help encourage you all to engage in a spiritual discipline as well. So for the next six weeks or so I'll ask that you take up a weekly spiritual practice, they can be the ones that I will describe or totally different. Here goes!

Walking with Psalm 123

1 To You I lift up my eyes, 

      O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

2 As the eyes of servants

      look to the hand of their master, 

as the eyes of a maid

      to the hand of the mistress, 

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

      until he has mercy upon us. 

3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, 

      for we have had more than enough of contempt.

4 Our soul has had more than its fill

      of the scorn of those who are at ease,

      of the contempt of the proud.

My attempts at spiritual discipline have been quite varied throughout my life. Often times I take on a different discipline with each liturgical season with the constant of daily prayer. I hope that these exercises will assist in equipping me with a deeper discipline of engaging my spirituality. This week as I walked my dog, Summit, I recited Psalm 123. I approached this practice by briefly memorizing a verse prior to each walk and would speak it aloud or within as I walked around the local park. 

Throughout the week I noticed a few things. First, I slowed down. Usually walking Summit entails a quick pace with a few encouragements for him to cease sniffing a bush for five minutes. However, as I recited the particular verse our pace became more relaxed as did my attitude. I was able to take in my surroundings and to simply be in the moment.

I also was able to gain new insight into the text. Often times when I preach or compose a Bible study I rely heavily on biblical commentaries as opposed to self-discernment and reflection. Maybe I don't think my ideas are right or good enough. But it is a practice I need to change. This discipline offered me a view of the text from life itself, not from the dust jackets of academia. 

After close to a week of walking with Summit and this text I could not help but be drawn into the theme of vocation. As we were walking Summit stopped and was sniffing a tree...I stood there waiting for him, getting lost in the repetition of verse one. Suddenly I looked at Summit and he was staring at me, a bit confused as to why I was not hurrying him along. I thought to myself, "The psalmist looks to the Lord, but does that always have to be to the heavens? What about when we look to the world and see God in our vocations and everyday life?" It seems like an unlikely intention from Psalm 123, but it refocused my attention to my duties in life as being sacred...doing God's work with my hands.

As the week progressed the psalm shifted as the writer asked for God's mercy from contempt and scorn. However, I could not shake the theme of vocation. As I dwelled in this psalm I thought that the writer might be drawing us out of our own anger and frustrations and moving us towards God's mercy. In doing so, we are called to reflect that mercy back out into the world in our daily life. These words helped me let go of anxieties and stress (or at least lessen them!) of starting my final year at seminary. In their stead I was given a place to rest within the mercies of God and given the sustenance to move forward with confidence and hope. If only it couldn't always be this way!

That's it for this week. I encourage every one of you to take up a spiritual practice this week and comment on this post. Let this space be a place for you to voice and share your own experiences!


Peace,
Tom

The Walking Dead

Well it is finally here, the last blog post on faith in pop culture! For this week's post I want to look at something that seems to have grabbed many TV viewers attention, zombies. In doing so we will look at the specific show The Walking Dead, but before that we should look at zombies themselves.

If for some reason you are unfamiliar with what a zombie is, it is usually defined as a genre of film, literature, or game where the dead come back to life as a mindless creature preying on living humans. Traditionally they are known to eat the living, though most often leaving some remains behind to become reanimated as a zombie. To kill one of these things, one needs to kill the brain whether through  forced trauma or with a bullet wound. Sounds pretty scary and disgusting doesn't it? 

However, the genre of zombie usually concerns itself less with the horror and more so with social commentary. More recent zombie films have critiqued racism, classism, consumerism, science, and individualism. Writing about each of these realms of critique deserve their own article, but it is enough to say that zombie writers and directors are making us look at the horror our sins and wrongdoings unleash upon the world. 

Theologically speaking, zombies offer us a closer look at our sins and human brokenness. Anthony R. Mills writes, "Most zombie films end up asserting that other living humans are a greater threat than the hordes of cannibalistic walking dead, not only in the metaphorical suggestions and parallels to real-life systemic injustices but also in the power struggles among the survivors, which often lead to them killing each other" (Don't Stop Believin', 205). Mills' argument is unfortunately true. Our sinfulness and brokenness pits us against each other when we need community most. Ending world hunger...good luck. Ending homelessness...yea right. Education for all...forget about it. Our human condition does not generate life, it creates ruin. We need God's grace to heal our wounds and to restore the world. It is only when we work with each other and with God to end these injustices of the world that the impossible becomes possible. 

With all of this said I turn to AMC's The Walking Dead as a prime example of our faith being lived out in zombie film. The setting is typical, a virus has spread across the world turning some into the walking/living dead leaving a small percentage immune to the pandemic. We meet our host of characters in the southern U.S., specifically Georgia. Rick is a former sheriff's deputy who awakens from a coma (he was shot in the line of duty prior to the zombie virus) to find the world he once knew long gone. Eventually he reunites with his family, but he struggles to find the meaning behind all of these terrible things. In the opening episode of season 2, Rick and the group narrowly escape a large group of zombies and take refuge in a church. Rick looks up to the statue of Jesus and asks for a sign that he is doing the right thing:

"I don't know if you're looking at me with what sadness, scorn, pity, love...maybe it's just indifference. I guess you already know I am not that much a believer. I guess I just chose to put my faith elsewhere, my family mostly. My friends. My job. The thing is we...I could use a little something to help keep us going. Some kind of acknowledgment, indication I am doing the right thing. You don't know how hard that is to know. Well, maybe you do. Hey look, I don't need all the answers just a little nudge, a sign. Any sign will do."

He gets no response, at least in the way he was hoping. Rick is struggling to find his faith a midst the horrors of the world and often times we do as well. With the recent military action in the Holy Land, planes being shot out of the sky, gun violence in Minneapolis, and child abusers being brought before the public we sometimes struggle to see exactly where God is working in the world. But God is here, God is not dead. God is working in those who combat the ills of the world, God is working in the the offenders to make them stop, God is sending those on the sidelines into the fray to be a part of the solution and healing of the world. Rick may not have gotten the answer he wanted, but God was working through his leadership to navigate a dark and frightening world for a small band of survivors. 

Another scene I would  like to mention reflects on what it is to pray. Often times we have a specific prayer we offer up to God, I have opened prayer the same way every night since I was in Sunday School! As a community we all pray the Lord's Prayer. But sometimes those words do not speak from our hearts, sometimes we need different ways to pray. Another character named Herschel, who serves as one of the group's doctors (he was a veterinarian before the zombie take over), has been running around trying to cure everyone of a flu like illness that has infected their now large group who currently resides in an abandoned prison. After a long day of treating people and fighting off a zombie infiltration, he sits down to read the Bible (he was and still remains a Christian), but can't. Instead he weeps. You see, sometimes we can't find the words to pray, sometimes they just don't do us justice. We can learn from Herschel to weep, or maybe to yell, and in some cases laugh. To let our emotion go and lay before God our pains and joys is indeed an honest prayer from the heart. 

My hope through this post and previous entries has been to open eyes to the work of God in the world. The Bible might be a closed book, set in stone if you will, but God's work is not. God is alive and well working throughout time and space to bring about healing, redemption, justice, mercy, and peace to the world. We need to listen to the Spirit calling us by our baptismal vows to be partners with God in this world. May we always find God in the unexpected doing the unbelievable. 

-Tom

Harry Potter!

I can recall my Dad ordering my siblings and I a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from amazon.com when we were youngsters and were enchanted by all things mysterious and magical. I eagerly tore through those pages and could barely wait for the next book to be published. These memories are not all that dissimilar to others who grew up with Harry Potter as the book series of their generation. And so it is to the Harry Potter franchise that we turn to in our examination of the 2000s.

The Harry Potter books (there are seven of them) focus on the life of Harry Potter from his infancy to young adulthood. The newly orphaned Harry is left on is Uncle and Aunt's doorstep and endures years of what I would deem "servitude" to his own family. All until he begins to notice that he has special powers and then on his 11th birthday he is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is a wizard. The rest of the books describe his adventures and mishaps while at school and also wrestle with the evil villain, Lord Voldemort. This man wants to control the world and rid it of "muggles" (non-wizard folk) and any wizard who may come from a family without any magical parents of grandparents, or "mudbloods."

The literary series, the movie series, the theme park, the supplemental series have made J.K. Rowling the first author to make over one billion dollars. With over 400 million books sold in 67 languages, plus the movies series being dubbed in other languages, one must say that the Harry Potter enterprise has left an imprint in our global culture.Now some may dismiss the Harry Potter series as whimsical books and movies for children or even worse, as awful works that promote witchcraft and should be avoided and/or destroyed. But such attitudes do not value the implicit elements of faith that present themselves to readers and viewers. Let's look at a few of them.

The Issues of Ethnic and Racial Discrimination
Lord Voldemort's focus and obsession with his cohorts to promote the wizard pure bloods reminds us of racial and ethnic discrimination similar to that of World War II. Both Hitler and Stalin had massive pogroms aimed at killing and/or ridding them of those deemed undesirable. Included were Jews, people with disabilities, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, political dissidents, and more. This issue can bee seen perfectly in the character of Draco Malfoy, Harry's enemy at school, who has blonde hair, blue eyes, and whose parents are Voldemort supporters. Such attitudes of superiority are not supported by Harry and the rest of the "good guys" of the series because they see all people and magical creatures as worthy of having their own voice and should be respected as such.

Economic Inequality
The Malfoy family is of high economic standing with Draco's father working within the government. However the Weasley family, Harry's good friends and pure blood wizards, don't enjoy such economic privilege despite the fact that the Weasley father works for the wizard government as well. Throughout the series the Weasleys are looked down upon by those of greater wealth, but they do not let such attitudes bring them down nor do they give them any credence. What the Malfoys have in money, they lack in values. The Weasleys are the ideal family: they stick up for each other, they make the best whatever situation they are in, and they love each other fiercely.

The Power of Death
It seems safe to say that groups around the world and throughout time have been fascinated with death and all have dealt with it in different ways. So the same reactions are played out in this series. Lord Voldemort seeks to thwart death by becoming immortal. He even goes so far as to split his soul into seven pieces so that he could come back to life if he were to die. Indeed Voldemort wants to control death by conquering it.
Harry and his like minded friends and family take a different route. They focus on death as not something that needs to be fought with every waking breath, instead they focus on the value of relationships here in this world as well as looking past death. Eric Bumpus notes, "Harry reads two scripture passages on the tombstone of his parents and of Dumbledore's mother and sister...The first is from Matthew 6:21 ("Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also") and the second from 1 Corinthians 15:26 ("The last enemy to be destroyed is death")..." (Don't Stop Believin', 181). Such passages note that there is a life after death, not a life without death. And Harry lives these out when he willingly sacrifices himself in Christ like fashion to save others, but ends up returning from the dead to stop Voldemort, the personification of evil, once and for all.

So please, do not dismiss Harry Potter as pure fiction or heresy, there are some excellent nuggets that pertain to our faith. It is in looking for God in unexpected places that we may be the most surprised! Next week is the final week of the faith in pop culture series. Any suggestions for a new series or something of the sort?

Peace,
Tom

"It is my belief...that the truth is generally preferable to lies." - Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblit of Fire, 2000

Ellen

We are coming close to finishing up the series of faith in pop culture! After this entry we will have only two more, so if you have any suggestions feel free to comment. With that said, I noticed that I have only discussed men in the prior blog posts. If you know me I do not pretend to be a chauvinist or anything of the sort. The reason for me only writing about men these past few weeks is because I have gravitated towards what I like, so it is time to break the cycle and write about someone who deserves and needs to be written about. For the decade of the 1990s we will look at Ellen DeGeneres.

Ellen started her career as a stand up comic working her way through clubs and coffeehouses eventually performing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986. She also has had a few unsuccessful sitcoms, has been in a few movies (most notably Finding Nemo), but has had the most success with her own daytime talk show. She currently captures roughly 2.74 million viewers per episode! The Ellen show is quirky and fun with a lot of audience participation, dancing, hilarious sketches, and heart warming acts of generous giving.

And yet, this does not capture who Ellen DeGeneres is for most people. Many need to qualify her as a lesbian celebrity. And she makes no efforts to hide her sexual orientation because she is not ashamed of who she is. Robert Putnam describes her as an "Aunt Susan." Barry Taylor describes this as, "...someone who holds different views than we might but is someone who we know and love" (Don't Stop Believin', 136). We all know an Aunt Susan don't we? It seems to me that as a church community we all have different opinions and views on how things should be done, different views of God, different views of social and political issues, yet we come together as a community of faith.

Ellen could be considered the Aunt Susan of America. She is showing many people that the LGBT community is not scary, they are not weird, they should not be avoided, they are normal people! They are part of God's good creation, no different than any other person! Ellen's big personality in various TV and movie mediums make her a household name and a celebrity that everyone can relate to. And it is her ability to be herself that connects us to a woman who identifies as a lesbian and makes many others embrace her for who she is simply because we care about her and not just her sexual orientation.

I foresee this post being a hot topic for quite a few people, but I invite you all to meditate and pray over whatever may bother you. If it brings you any solace, look to the sacrament of Holy Communion. Everyone is invited to the table to share in the rich feast of God's blessing and grace, no one is left out. That's the God we believe in, a radical God who showers mercy and grace upon all! So why can't we welcome those of all sexual orientations? Perhaps we need to let go of our own personal prejudices and simply do what God asked us to do and displayed for us on the cross...love.

In Christ,
Tom