Readings for February 23-March 1: pgs. 11-21.
Key Quotes
"People think they have heard the invitation. The thing they have accepted it or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty is to hear at all." (11)
"I think we finally have to say that Jesus' enduring relevance is based on his historically proven ability to speak to, to heal, and empower the individual human condition...He promises wholeness for their lives...Suddenly they are flying right-side up, in a world that makes sense." (13)
"So, C.S. Lewis writes, our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and 'trying to carry it out.' Rather, 'The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought...into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.'" (20)
Key Questions
At what point in your life have you most clearly understood Jesus' invitation to discipleship? Has that invitation been dulled by years of "overfamiliarity"?
How has Jesus most clearly spoke to, healed, or empowered your life?
aloha, Matt
I do think that overfamiliar leads to unfamiliar (although I've never thought of it this way before). In my own life, I sometimes think "I've read this in the Bible before, why should I read it again?" maybe I'll just read a book written by a Christian author instead. Leading to a lack of knowledge and depth about God's instruction book for me. I think it is a worse tagedy that non believers think they have heard the message (a distorted one) and have rejected an untrue version of Christianity. Dallas begins to talk about combating this. One idea that I'm striving to internalize more is the moment by moment submission to the will of God and reintigrate my life into the Rule of God. I can go way too long, in the daily grind, without even thinking if my actions are in line with God's Will.
ReplyDeleteI'm right with you Timmy. Certainly all those Bible verses we memorized in AWANA and JVs has made us overfamiliar. And when I think of how blessed we were to have families and friends that supported us, when there are so many people who never had that chance, it definiely makes me feel guilty for allowing that overfamiliarty to turn into unfamiliarity
ReplyDeleteI'm excited, along with Tim, to journey into new territory of integrating our moment to moment decisions into the rule of God. No matter how badly we feel about how we have drifted in the past, lets press on ahead together and see what good things God has for us. I know I can certainlty fly through my day of teaching classes, and only after realize that I probably missed many "divine appointments" God had for me, even if they were as small as greeting a student in the hallways, asking them about their sports, or encouraging a colleague. It's so natural for me to get tunnel visioned with my own concerns and perceptions of how I'm doing as a teacher, and I completely miss the point that I am surrounded by students and teachers who need affirmation and strength from Jesus just like I do.
ReplyDeleteThis is a bit of a long post...but this stuff gets me going, so hope this is helpful.
ReplyDeleteThere is much here for us to savor and be challenged by...including the truth that it is far too easy for us to ignore God's summons to be present to him throughout the day. The past year has been a time of realizing how far I have strayed from really believing that God was near and present in my life.
Having said that, however, I will present one of my big concerns with Willard, which you all will probably hear me bring up in other contexts again...it is his fundamentally individualistic framework. The church is almost never mentioned in a book about God's divine conspiracy??? (Check the index) If it is all up to me to be present to God and live in his kingdom, I am screwed!
Dallas is absolutely right that the kingdom is meant to begin impacting our life now. It is a real tragedy that Christians have thought of the gospel in ways that divorce faith and life. But it is not a matter of simply changing my mind and personally seeking to be present to God (as imporatant as that is). As you all know, our minds are weak, as are our wills. What we need is a culture of kingdom-minded people surrounding us and calling us into a kingdom-minded life.
Why is American culture so upside-down? In part because we began to think (around 200 years ago) that the church was not all that important (or even a hindrance) to following Jesus. There are many ways that the church has failed to fulfill the purposes of God (i.e., failed to call people to live the kingdom-shaped life), but Dallas should not circumvent the church and direct his call to individuals first. This will only lead to frustration.
We are cultural beings and it is culture that shapes all of most decisively, not disembodied ideas. And culture is always embodied within a particular community. The culture which is meant to most decisively embody the culture of God's kingdom is the church. So, if we want to make much progress in the type of life Willard is outlining for us, we need to think long and hard about the cultural realities of the communities we inhabit, including (and perhaps beginning with) the church. If we do not have a kingdom-shaped culture emerging in our church, how in the world do we expect to have it in our own lives personally?
I am not trying to give any of us an excuse for our struggle. I am actually trying to raise the bar...what are we doing to grow in these things not only as individuals, but as members of a community that desperately needs the life of God to shape it? How do we begin to develop and experience a kingdom-shaped culture together? As our shared concern for God's kingdom shapes us, we will stand a much better chance of actually living alive to God personally...otherwise, we will be running an endless marathon, seeking to resist a culture we are to weak to overcome. Our feelings of failure will give way to feelings of despair.
I am challenged by your thoughts, Rob. In my conversations with many of the guys on this blog, as well as from my own experiences, finding and fostering the type of community that is truly saturated by His Kingdom can be a sizable challenge. I am glad that you have brought up this issue so early in the blog, as I think it will be realy helpful for all of us to have this on our radar screen, so to speak, as we move through the book. Though I have been part of a local body for about five years (Kailua Community Church), I also view the relationships I have with brothers and sisters across the country (and world) as a vital part of the community of disciples God has blessed me with. In our modern world of instant communication across great distances, I think it will be fruitful for us to wrestle with how God calls us to be in community.
ReplyDeleteI must confess that I felt a tinge of defensiveness for Willard as I read your critique. While I agree with you that the mission of the church is largely absent from the book, chapter 8, entitled "The Community of Prayerful Love," has some invaluable insights as to how the Sermon on the Mount should transform our social relationships, both within the community of co-disciples, and in "the world."
Lastly, I also think back to the introduction where Willard writes that his goal in The Divine Conspiracy is to re-introduce Jesus to people who think they understand His invitation to life in Christ, but actaully do not. (overfamiliarity leading to actual unfamiliarity, leading ultimately to contempt, according to Willard) Part of his project involves sticking pretty close to progression of life in the Kingdom that Jesus taught on in the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps it is Willard's goal to have his readers hear the Gospel for the first time, so to speak, as did the original audience of the Sermon on the Mount. From this point, Willard then trusts that we will do the hard work of working out what this means for our commitment to the church today, and what the mission of the church should be in light of Jesus' clear direction in the Great Commission to make disciples. But in the end, maybe I am purposely turning a blind eye to his omission because I like the guy so much...I'm open to that possibility. (: Aloha everybody.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words...I can understand your concern with my comments, especially since it is my first post on the book. I do not want to derail the conversation by bringing up this issue. I think Willard is great...I just think this is a major blindspot in the book and in American Christianity as a whole. I hope that by raising it we can begin to take the wisdom Willard presents and think through some ways his thoughts might need to be carried even farther than he outlines in the book.
I'll leave off discussing it in more depth for now, but as we go further in the book, I'll try to explain why this is an important issue...it basically comes down to the fact that I do not believe you can understand what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God without understanding the importance of the church (which obviously involves 'community' and 'relationality', but is far more than either of these things in themselves).
If you want more, I am willing to share it...just don't want to derail us from discussing other important insights from the book.
Right on, Rob. At the times where you think it would be most helpful, I look forward to reading your thoughts, or reading some posted articles (perhaps even books) that might balance/correct some of Willard's biases. So glad you are in on this conspiracy!
ReplyDelete