Good weed
I always thought of a weed as I think of termites or roaches. They are pests.
Not so.
It was shared with me not too long ago that a weed is really just a plant that is out of place.
This made me reconsider for a moment the inherent goodness in a weed (or a roach for that matter).
God creates all things and in all things God calls them good. In fact God calls all of creation Very Good in the early chapter of the book of Genesis.
Even roaches are good. Even weeds.
In the Church we have a tendency to want to ascribe the labels of “good” and “bad” on things in order to help segment out our lives and actions. We do this in an attempt to help identify who is one of the chosen ones or who is a true disciple and who is not.
Just like what I have done with plants. There are some that are good (flowers and grass) and there are some that are bad, and weeds are the king of bad plants.
However, it is clear that God does not operate in this way. All things are very good, and when things look like they have gone “bad” perhaps it is not the case at all. Perhaps all that has happened is that this good is out of place.
For instance take the action and emotion of hate. Many Christians work to eradicate hate from our lives and world because it is “bad”.
However, it is clear that hate is in fact a good thing when in its proper place.
Should we not hate slavery? War? Violence? Abuse? Exploitation?
Perhaps it would benefit our spiritual development if we stopped viewing the world through categories of good and bad. What would it do to our spiritual development if we were able to see the Good in ALL things while noticing when things are just out of place?
Worship as a spiritual feeding tube?
It it not uncommon to hear the Sunday worship is that place where we go to get "fed" for the week. It is the time in which we learn and worship and are nourished for the coming week.
I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.
All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.
The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old. Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit as another feeds me.
So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.
When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?
My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:
"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."
Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.
I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.
All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.
The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old. Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit as another feeds me.
So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.
When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?
My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:
"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."
Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.
Dumb sheep, hidden treasure and Jesus
Quick little parable of Jesus about the Kingdom of God (KoG):
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.'
When reading this parable, you may be like me and consider that the KoG is like this treasure in which we find, sometimes stumbling across it, and when we do we rejoice and give all we have in order to obtain this treasure. Sounds good to me.
Until I realize that nowhere in that interpretation of this parable is there any room for God. In fact, in this understanding of this parable, it is we humans who are doing all the work and God is absent. Which is radically different than what the rest of Jesus' message is about, in which God is the one who is acting first and primary.
Take the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd leaves the other ninety-nine to find the lost one. We get it. God is the shepherd and we are the sheep. Notice that God is acting first and primary in this common interpretation of this parable. God is the good shepherd and we are the dumb sheep.
Christians have a bit of a self esteem problem sometimes. We are okay with identifying ourselves as dumb sheep and a man who "stumbles" across a treasure. But we are not usually comfortable with identifying ourselves as more.
Back to the parable of the treasure in the field.
What if this parable is God is the one who found a treasure and put that treasure in the field? Then God so delights in this treasure God gives all that God has in order to be one (reconcile) with this treasure? What if humans are God's treasure?
The KoG is like God first found treasure (human beings), then put that treasure in the field (the earth). And then God gave all that God had (God became human and lived, died and resurrected) in order to be one with this treasure (reconciliation with humanity).
In a world (and sometimes in the Church) in which you and I are constantly told we are not good enough, not smart enough or pretty enough, could it be that Jesus is saying to us - God thinks you are good enough.
What if the Good News is that God holds you as treasure?
We are comfortable with the idea that we are dumb sheep, it validates to us what the world says to us. However could it be that a counter-cultural message that is the Good News be that you - yes, you- are God's treasure?
If that is an uncomfortable idea, then perhaps we are beginning to see how some people really thought Jesus was wrong.
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.'
When reading this parable, you may be like me and consider that the KoG is like this treasure in which we find, sometimes stumbling across it, and when we do we rejoice and give all we have in order to obtain this treasure. Sounds good to me.
Until I realize that nowhere in that interpretation of this parable is there any room for God. In fact, in this understanding of this parable, it is we humans who are doing all the work and God is absent. Which is radically different than what the rest of Jesus' message is about, in which God is the one who is acting first and primary.
Take the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd leaves the other ninety-nine to find the lost one. We get it. God is the shepherd and we are the sheep. Notice that God is acting first and primary in this common interpretation of this parable. God is the good shepherd and we are the dumb sheep.
Christians have a bit of a self esteem problem sometimes. We are okay with identifying ourselves as dumb sheep and a man who "stumbles" across a treasure. But we are not usually comfortable with identifying ourselves as more.
Back to the parable of the treasure in the field.
What if this parable is God is the one who found a treasure and put that treasure in the field? Then God so delights in this treasure God gives all that God has in order to be one (reconcile) with this treasure? What if humans are God's treasure?
The KoG is like God first found treasure (human beings), then put that treasure in the field (the earth). And then God gave all that God had (God became human and lived, died and resurrected) in order to be one with this treasure (reconciliation with humanity).
In a world (and sometimes in the Church) in which you and I are constantly told we are not good enough, not smart enough or pretty enough, could it be that Jesus is saying to us - God thinks you are good enough.
What if the Good News is that God holds you as treasure?
We are comfortable with the idea that we are dumb sheep, it validates to us what the world says to us. However could it be that a counter-cultural message that is the Good News be that you - yes, you- are God's treasure?
If that is an uncomfortable idea, then perhaps we are beginning to see how some people really thought Jesus was wrong.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.