Door No. 3

The house is quiet tonight after celebrating my son’s sixth birthday.  In the welcome silence I clicked on a  short video sequence I did in 2001 after spending time in Haiti. Feeling compelled to compose the clip at the time, it was played a few short years later during this young girl’s wake which honored her life and  mourned what we still feel was a premature death.  How mysterious are the ways in which He moves us. 

 It’s not hard to argue that the number of ways we  communicate is growing. As technology offers new  delivery mechanisms for consideration nearly every day, it  is important to understand that all of them, new and old  alike, do essentially the same thing. Every communication  tool is useful only in as much as it brings audience attention to an idea in a meaningful way. This helps us remember there are people on both sides of these vehicles. The communicator and the audience alike, decide whether or not the message offered delivers a return on their attention. I got a return in the mail today when my friend Daphne sent a link for a video clip entitled “what matters to you?” She doesn’t normally, but she sent this one, and I was curious. Besides, Daphne holds a position as an advocate for marginalized women and children, so what she celebrates in life played a part in my decision to click and I was moved.  Value free communication is pointless, even as it makes all the louder the point of no return. 

My friend and pastor Peter Matthews spoke of the command that reads, “You shall have no other God’s before me.” He commands this Peter says, because of His great big love for us. He is our food. We ate lunch and met with a group of villagers living sacrificially as the parish council. They told us that church buildings to hold all the people, transportation, and clean water were among the top three challenges. There are 400 hundred orphans in the area from the genocide, a compassion international presence, and a jug of water is a two hour walk. I was warmed by a throng of little faces pressing in at my knees for a smile and a lo-five. I could see God’s beauty in each face.

I went to the block party at the Lexington Rescue Mission on Dec. 22nd, 2007. I felt helpless, low that I was showing up late, preoccupied, needy and awkward, then Jesus in Frank’s face melted me.  He was the hero among us. He stood tall in the shining love of the Father. The story was told of him saving a man on the side of circle four. Frank snatched the man from being hit by a car.  The man looked at him and said,  “Are you going to hurt me?” “No, I am going to love you like Jesus loves me.” I was really moved by his towering stature, openess and earnest humility. So I listened to Him and went back. 

This evening I listened to Dr. Sandra Richter share insight into the Old Testament on behalf of the New Testament believer. She said first and foremost the Bible is the story of redemption communicating the realities of that redemption to the human race. Everything that is critical for us to know about God’s relationship to humanity is in the book. She described a large number of believers and leaders who consider the Old Testament little more than an unfortunate preface to the New Testament and gave three reasons why she believed this is true. 1. Christians don’t realize the Old Testament is their story. Even though it shows God grappling through the ages to bring them home.  2. Dysfunctional Closet Syndrome –she describes a closet or a drawer that is so full, so entangled that when you go to pull one thing out many other things ride along with it. For this reason bringing order to, or making sense of the space is regularly post-posed. This was offered as a metaphor for the volume of content in the Old Testament. We may have Ps. 23 or a recent Proverb sitting on top but beyond this, the O.T. seems to be too much to untangle. 3. The Great Barrier is the third reason many believers consider the Old Testament an unfortunate preface to the New. This is the great barrier of culture where ethnocentrism leads us to believe every culture is like our own; even more specifically we expect other people will be like us. She used the coined phrase ‘canonizing culture’ to note the human tendency to see one’s culture as superior, more christian, holier than others. She illustrated this with paintings of Jesus that demonstrate the enculturation of the painter.   She moved from here to a portrayal of Jewish culture that is Patriarchal, Patrilocal and Patrilineal. Then drew from the stories of Boaz and Ruth, Abraham and Lot, Hosea and Gomer to portray redemption as a patriarch putting his resources and reputation on the line, paying whatever price is necessary to restore marginalized members to his household. This is our story.

The man who twirled with rose in teeth has his tongue tied up in thorns His once expanded sense of time and space all shot and torn See him wander hat in hand -”Look at me, I’m so forlorn -Ask anyone who can recall It’s horrible to be born!” Big Circumstance comes looming like a darkly roaring train - rushes like a sucking wound across a winter plain Recognizing neither polished shine nor spot nor stain -And wherever you are on the compass rose you’ll never be again left like a shadow on the step where the body was before -shipwrecked-at-the-stable-door.mp3     

Big Circumstance has brought me here -Wish it would send me home Never was clear where home is But it’s nothing you can own It can’t be bought with cigarettes or nylons or perfume and all the highest bidder gets is a voucher for a tomb blessed are the poor in spirit -blessed are the meek for theirs shall be the kingdom that the power mongers seek Blessed are the dead for love and those who cry for peace and those who love the gift of earth -May their gene pool increase Left like a shadow on the step where the body was before -Shipwrecked at the stable door     

The song ‘Shipwrecked at the Stable Door’ was apparently inspired by the book ‘Lion and Lamb’ by Brennan Manning, which Bruce mentions as a source of inspiration in the liner notes for ‘Big Circumstance.’ The final chapter of that book is titled ‘The Shipwrecked at the Stable. “Bruce writes, “This is one of those sort of religious leaning ones. I always picture myself as a sort of drunk in a doorway when I sing this song, you know, just to give people an idea where it’s coming from. Ranting about religion.”  

The house flag of the Missions to Seamen, recently renamed the Missions to Seafarers. This organisation was founded by the Church of England in 1856, to co-ordinate the various Anglican ministries to seamen. The angel motif was adopted in the 1858 house flag. It was inspired by a verse from the Book of Revelation: “Then I saw an angel flying in mid-heaven with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those on earth, to every nation and tribe, language and people.” Now renamed Mission to Seafarers, the organisation remains active in 100 ports worldwide, including Tilbury.

I see in you hope for a dying world, a lighthouse beckoning in the storm, a path leading to peace. I see in you picture’s of God’s love painted out of careful thought and sensitivity, portraying the unseen mysteries of God. I see in you God’s creativity at work, your ability to grasp an image from His mind, your ease at bringing that image into existence.I see in you a gift to reach the nations, a tool to express the inexpressible, a God-given purpose for your life. I see in you the courage to tackle the task, a desire to glorify God with your talents, a determination to impact the world 

“People of today have not grown.  Technology and commerce have become a law unto themselves, which threatens to destroy the human person.  They raise themselves up and their demons populate the heavens as the gods of our time.  The great changes among the people drive them down and down, while no one appears strong enough to halt the inevitable fate for humankind.  The artist simply reproduces what is going on around him. Expressing this, we have shrill, toneless music and loud colors on canvas.  Even religions refuse to take more than one tiny step ahead of the accepted norms.  And in the knowledge of such degradation of the human person, there comes a great hope for a new kind of person, for a rebirth, for the future.  Whether one sees this person as a political, moral, intellectual, a warrior, or the man of peace, there is basically one concern– the new person of the future. The human person must not go under, but must triumph.  The powers of this world must neither tread the person down nor enslave him.  He must remain lord of the world, lord of the future. And because we wish this, we work feverishly to produce the “New man”  For the clouds of the future are dark and no one knows when they will break.” Luke 12:35-40 

I think a case can be made that the  heart of the gospel is “do not fear.” This formula is the quintessential world-changing assurance in the Bible.  Fear is the great pathology of our society. It is the task of the church to say “do not fear,” but that assurrance must be grounded in a God who is trusted to be present in effective ways. And God is not present apart from the imagination of the poets. Thus the church, in its poetic vocation with grounding in the holy assurance of God, is entrusted with the antidote to the pathology of our time and place.  It is not an easy assurance, but it is one that opens space for different actions and different social relationships, and so for different futures. This is an amazing trust to the church, and one about which the church is often too timid.