gospelmind |
seeing life through the lens of the Gospel |
"I need more than my ears, eyes and far more than what I have learned in books of professional preparation for my work. What I need in the first place, and what is most difficult to obtain, is to break through my unconscious self-preoccupation." (The Art of Existential Counseling, Van Kaam 23)
From Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's essay in "Schools of Conversion"—
"Contemplation is about learning to see the world through the lens of the cross. It is a simple confession of the Christian faith that Jesus went to the cross, dies for our sins, and calls us to take up our own crosses and follow him. Christians believe that. But to live your whole life as if that were true—that is something that has to be learned. Mother Teresa is often cited as an example from the 20th century of one who lived a Christ-like life... Rarely, however, do I hear anyone explain the years of contemplation that Mother Teresa practiced in order to become the kind of person who could serve as Christ served."Charles Taylor, in his book, A Secular Age, explains one major thrust of the work of Ivan Illich:
"Codes, even the best codes, can become idolatrous traps, which tempt us to complicity in violence. Illich can remind us not to become totally invested in the code, even the best code of a peace-loving, egalitarian, liberalism. We should find the centre of our spiritual lives beyond the code, deeper than the code, in networks of living concern, which are not to be sacrificed to the code, which must even form time to time subvert it." (p. 743)Romans 8:2—For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.Awesome. I just overheard a conversation between a three year old and her mom at Linnea's:
From Counsel from the Cross, by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson:
[Jesus] has unflinching faith and hope in your transformation because he knows the power of his love. He knows that one day he will bring you to be with himself.
—pg. 63.
This hit me with some force. You see, too often we approach God as if He is unaware of the Gospel. We sin—well, we believe we are forgiven, but that God is displeased, holds the grudge, feels that we'd better re-establish that we really love Him. We sense that He is frustrated, sighs, rolls His eyes, though He forgives us.
But this is to believe in a God who does not believe the Gospel. This is to believe in a God who has forgotten that He has all power to transform us. And that what He started in us, He will finish. (Phil. 1:6)
The truth is, when Jesus looks at us, He sees us in the full context of our entire lives—including the fact that He knows exactly how and when He will liberate us from every idolatry. There isn't a bit of suspense for Him. He doesn't wonder whether we'll pull it together. He knows that He will pull us together, in His likeness.
Today I was reading over some documents by the Gospel Coalition, a group whose dedication to keeping the Gospel primary in the lives of Christians, I admire greatly. One sentence, however, caught my attention:
We believe that in many evangelical churches a deep and broad consensus exists regarding the truths of the gospel. Yet we often see the celebration of our union with Christ replaced by the age-old attractions of power and affluence, or by monastic retreats into ritual, liturgy, and sacrament. What replaces the gospel will never promote a mission-hearted faith anchored in enduring truth working itself out in unashamed discipleship eager to stand the tests of kingdom-calling and sacrifice.
There's a lot in here. And I certainly agree with the last sentence—whatever replaces the gospel will also displace the power which fuels our Christian lives of mission, love and mercy, discipleship and worship. The Gospel is itself the only power for salvation, and not only for being justified before God—the Gospel is our only hope for being sanctified day by day.
What I want to consider is a phrase right at the middle of this statement:
Yet we often see the celebration of our union with Christ replaced... by monastic retreats into ritual, liturgy, and sacrament.
I believe there is a false dichotomy here. Either, the writers seem to imply, one is faithful to the Gospel, or they take ritual, liturgy and sacrament seriously. These, then, are elements which displace the Gospel, and cannot do otherwise. We are better off without them for they distract from what really matters—Christ crucified and resurrected for our salvation.
No argument is needed that liturgy and ritual can displace the Gospel. There are two questions which I want to raise:
1. Must these replace the Gospel, or can they be a tool in service of the Gospel?
2. More importantly, can we pursue the Gospel without them? Can we be people whose lives are anchored in Gospel truth, without recourse to any kind of ritual, liturgy, or Sacrament?
I am pressing this issue, not because I believe the writers of the Preamble necessarily would answer these questions in a way I would find objectionable (namely, "yes" to both). But I think contemporary, evangelical culture does answer these questions badly. Or, rather, they set them aside altogether and do not consider them.
Liturgy, ritual, sacrament—these are all subordinated to "what works" and "what communicates," where our primary concern becomes how to be "relevant." This is one direction we take, and in the best of cases it is taken purely out of a concern to reach people who need to know Jesus and who would object to "religious" seeming elements in our church gatherings. Our desire is to see people know Jesus, so we strip away anything we think might keep them from coming. This we see largely in the Willow Creek, Saddleback genre of the church. And I think we should not be quick to write off this group. Having heard Rick Warren speak several times, the only conclusion I can come to is that he deeply loves Jesus and deeply loves people and is doing his utmost to communicate the Gospel effectively in a way that makes sense to him. Whatever quibbles we have with the packaging, I have to insist that God loves Rick Warren very much and is pleased with him. (Is this not the Gospel?)
(This is also the direction that we see teachers like Rob Bell, Dan Kimball and Brian McLaren going, with a whole different culture in view.)
Another direction we might head is to subordinate liturgy and sacrament to Preaching; since it is the Word of the Gospel which brings salvation, we can put all of our efforts toward sermons which communicate the Gospel clearly, week in and week out. This is what we see in the churches of John Piper, Tim Keller, R.C. Sproul and others of that ilk. I have a profound respect for these men and their ministries and have benefited greatly from them. And the centrality of preaching is undoubtedly important. (The grace of God in the teaching of His word is even more important; not all men are like John Piper [read this, for the love of every pastor you will ever have]. That God uses men who are not so gifted but who love and teach the Gospel is grace upon grace. This is why I can sleep at night.)
But are liturgy, sacrament, ritual—and with them "monastic" activities like the spiritual disciplines—really at odds with being relevant, or the centrality of preaching? Moreover, are relevance and good preaching enough?
My concern is that these two factors reduce the human down to what we view him as today—a social mind. That is, we view ourselves as shaped by our context and interacting with truth through the lens of the culture we've been taught (true), and we view ourselves as essentially products of what we think (again, true).
What we lose in this reduction is a view of ourselves as incarnate—needing physical actions, motions, activities, pictures to learn spiritual truth—and as continuous, that is, having an essence that is the same whether we are alive now, in the Middle Ages or as contemporaries with Jesus.
The idea that teaching, without ritual, liturgy, or disciplines, can communicate the Gospel entirely, is very new. And so is the idea that traditions are merely artifacts from previous cultural forms which cannot speak to us today. These are new. They are not the way we as humans have thought throughout the ages.
What I want to explore as I muse about these things is this: Liturgy, sacrament, ritual, and discipline are not in fact essential enemies of the Gospel, but can be great tools of Gospel learning. When they serve the centrality of the Gospel they give us a daily handle on the truths we hear taught in the Word. And when they are introduced to us in a way we can understand, with their essence explained and modeled, they appear very, very relevant. These things help us to re-integrate the body into our Christian lives (which too often has no place except as a foe to be defeated), and they help us regain a sense of the Church as catholic (that is, Universal—throughout time and space). We are not so different from those who came before us. We are really the same.
And in all these things, I believe the Gospel truth—that we are, once for all, justified by faith in the death of Jesus on our behalf, and sanctified progressively, certainly, by the power of His resurrection—can be more brightly on display for our having participated in liturgy and sacrament and discipline. I believe these things can come home to us far more clearly in a happy union between Preaching and Liturgy.
Pastor of Spiritual Formation at First Baptist Church, SLO (www.fbcslo.org). Working on figuring out how a local church community can move toward a healthy, Gospel-centered rhythm of spiritual disciplines, community and missional presence. Sure that, whatever it looks like practically, the mechanism is "beholding the glory of the Lord."
