Front PageChapter Twleve: The Hard Part: Difference Between Temple Worship and Authentic Living
Submitted by reido on Thu, 01/20/2005 - 17:30.
Now is a good time for me to get started on a topic that attempts to assess where we have been and where we are going. "Church" used to mean people, and there have been times when the word was such a general description that for the sake of communication, the word "people" may serve better than the word "church."
Often the usage defines what goes on in a building, and in maintaining a location. We have already looked at the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, so there is no need to repeat the basics. In our time, possibly more than ever, it has become necessary to broaden this view -- not just for the sake of those folks who now gather in smaller groups, but in order to better understand that what has developed down through the centuries is totally foreign to the scope of Jesus' ministry. Understand...worship, bible study, display of talent, and fellowship are not what we would call evil things -- perhaps they are more a distraction from authentic living.
Even the Soul of man has taken on a more determinate view than what was manifest in the life and ministry of Jesus. He chose simple stories to teach the Kingdom of God -- and the point often missed nowadays is that the descriptive was not a temple, a future state, or even a particular place. Rather, it was the state of the Soul of man in life that was of greatest importance.
Why is living in God so hard? Isn't that the ultimate question that each person has to ask and answer in his/her own life? In modern parable, the image of Christmas shopping in crowded malls with long checkout lines and a nearly loaded charge card to pay for something you had to struggle to find, but the person you are buying for really doesn't want or need comes to mind. Then to make things even more difficult there are any number of folks out there willing to tell you how to go about doing this thing of living the good life.
One of the aspects of Jesus' behavior that grabs attention is the way that he really never did say much about the details. "Go and sin no more", is the advice given to a person who may have had a very messy life in the past, and the rest of her life ahead. Why not define all the possible stumbling points? Why not establish the boundaries? Why not settle the disputes and line drawing? These obvious questions and the lack of instruction goes straight to the heart of what defines the experience of being a Soul. Of course, we could dive into study of the Mosaic covenant and begin to extrapolate the base of knowledge that these people possessed at the time that Jesus was with them. Or we could fast-forward to the epistles of Paul or Peter and see how the instructions developed over time. Neither of these really answers the question though. Observation of the lives of those who were in contact with Christ, really shows that their knowledge base often served only to complicate matters.
These idiosyncracies lead me to believe that the idea of being a Soul has been and continues to be distorted.
Here, now...I want to insert Bill's post that connects to the line of thought:
Quote:
Faith Development: “Are We There, Yet?”
Submitted by bill on Fri, 03/03/2006 - 10:44. Faith
Anyone who's made a road trip with children has probably heard the question; “are we there, yet?” several times. With little sense of distance and the time required to travel it, children expect swift gratification. Time really is relative. We compare duration to past experience. One year is 20% of a 5 year life but only 2% of a 50 year. Although astrophysics defines a year to be one complete revolution of the earth about the sun, people experience time, or duration, relative to their own experience.Faith development is another journey that takes longer than we expect. There are many today who teach that all that's necessary for spiritual maturity is a quick confession of faith and a dunk in the hot tub. But nothing could be further from the truth. Faith development takes time and it requires disappointment, failure and struggle, as well as endurance, encouragement and discipline. It is a journey, not a destination. And journeys are experiential, they refuse to give up their destination without investment of trial and endurance.
Many Christians stop traveling when they reach the plateau that James Fowler calls Synthetic-Conventional faith. They're content to make permanent camp and to forever put all their energies into ignoring the higher mountains in the distance, yet to be ascended. Enemies are those who look for more and who ask whether the journey really is done. Heretics are those who question the established assumptions or point to yonder mountains. New or further knowledge is anathema to these. They must not entertain further seeking because it will undermine the Journey's End doctrine and mock the leaders who base their power on it. Some however, cannot stay still, or are forced from their paradise by circumstances.
Perhaps the wise leaders of Synthetic-Conventional valley know what lies beyond contentment, between the valley and the next ridge. Because most who strike out on the next leg of the faith journey will sometimes wish they could just go back to Contentment Valley. But we can never go home again. Once we've seen some of the bigger world, we can never be content in the valley. We will always wonder what's over the ridge. And maybe it's this wonder that pushes us onward. Or, perhaps it's only the knowing that we can never go back. Either way, there are only two choices for those who climb out of the valley of conventional contentment: wander in the wilderness or strive toward the ridge and the higher valley of Conjunctive faith. For stage 4, or Individuative-Reflective faith is a wilderness.
In the same way as Abraham, Moses, the children of Israel and Jesus, we must journey through the wilderness, be tempted and tested, learn to trust and depend on God and endure toward the higher calling. It cannot be easy or there would be no reward. It is the struggle that purchases real contentment because true discipline has a cost.
Luke 14:25-35 wrote:
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Salt and faith are no good once they've lost their saltiness. Stasis is not only useless but damages the environment. The journey continues. Are we there, yet?
Quote:This is the heart of Faith. Brainwashing a person into submission to a fraction of the whole of life is easy -- actually prevalent in religious circles. Programming enables the person to cease change and dig in his heels insisting and urging all whom he encounters that this is THE way. It is, however, discoverable over time to be only a glimpse of reality -- a denomination, if you will, of the whole of life.
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Where Are the Details?
Submitted by reido on Fri, 03/03/2006 - 12:33.
Bill
I want to connect this ("...Your point that Jesus leaves out the details is one that's baffled me before.")with the thoughts behind your post, "Are We There Yet?"
You are describing a very necessary process --that of the Journey itself. That fits so well with "The Hard Part". We all want answers; we want to arrive quickly and without a lot of hard work -- skip the hard part.
Even as kids we always had to ask because we expected answers. Like when our pets died, we wanted to know where they are. "Gone to heaven" was such an easy answer.
This "wandering" stage you wrote about, I find it to be a stage of realization that "Question" itself is process that leads to more process. At first it was kind of like having the rug pulled out from under me to admit that not only were there things I didn't now know, these things had compounded into a multiplicity of unknowns.
I find also that even though as you put it, there is no going back, there are also stops and starts, blunders, failures, feelings that there really IS no answer -- all necessary to the process. The kind of Authentic Living we seek is just that -- the experience.
Im going to give this more thought, but I really think the ideas link very well to The Hard Part.
reido
» reply
From Oasis to Oasis
Submitted by bill on Fri, 03/03/2006 - 13:39.
Reido,
I'm doing a tangential study of faith development, specifically the skepticism-to-conjunctive path. When you wrote about the “Hard Part,” after the experiences of the past couple of weeks, I decided to look at the subject a little deeper.
Possibly, it will flow back into pursuing God. Beyond that, I think this site is mostly about surviving Stage 4 and getting into Stage 5 of Fowler's faith development. But I don't believe it's as simply compartmentalized as Fowler describes.
bill
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If There Were a Map
Submitted by reido on Fri, 03/03/2006 - 16:40.
Bill
Doesnt the compartmentalization get back to the idea that the details are missing? I agree with you considering what little I have read of Fowler's work here and on a website -- I recognize the theme of conjunctive faith in part but the process you liken to wandering continues with no apparent reason to end. The fits of stopping and starting, I see no end to either. As long as I am alive, I think this will continue as part of the experience.
But then, this is something like heading for the Great Divide without a map and I cant even see the mountains yet. But sure is some beautiful scenery on the way.
Thanks so much for the input.
reido
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Counterfeit Kingdom
Reido,
I like your Christmas shopping example. We go out of our way to do the unnecessary so as to appear as if we're accomplishing the necessary.
Original sin is not disobediently eating from the forbidden tree, it is choosing to eat from the tree of judgment instead of the tree of life. We eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because it makes us feel like a god. We want God to demand of us what we want to give—obedience to rules—because rule keeping puts us in charge.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is using Paul's angry words against those who attempted to reattach to law those he'd worked hard to detach from it, as indictments against those who today are trying to detach people from the Law of Sin and Death.
Your point that Jesus leaves out the details is one that's baffled me before. God starts out with a simple principle—Trust Me—and we attach a bunch of nonsense onto it with baling wire and duct tape. God gives Moses 10 rules for teaching the Israelites what a God trusting person looks like, and the law becomes a god in itself. Enter Jesus who takes it back to basics with Trust Me, Emulate Me, but we build an institution to regulate trust and emulation because we don't trust him. Then we make the institution into a god and worship it calling it the Body of Christ.
Our church is built out of lumber from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
bill