Katdish.net

Confession time. I’ve been a bit consumed by the political process lately. But rather than write about it and risk offending some or possibly most of you, I think I’ll just keep my discourse to myself. For now.

In the meantime, while we can probably always find SOMETHING to complain about, this old post reminded me that if nothing else, at least I’m not Dwayne…

Anne Geddes image courtesy of photobucket.com

I was recently the recipient of one of those emails that your sweet Aunt Martha tends to forward to you.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

Those emails that have been forwarded so often and to so many recipients that you have to scroll down half the page before getting to the body of the email, only to find that much of the body is filled with cute pictures of babies dressed as flowers and/or those annoying flashing emoticons?

I’ll be honest. I usually delete these emails unread. But for whatever reason, I was feeling generous and decided to read it. You’ve probably read it before, or one very much like it. It was one of those well intentioned object lessons which are supposed to make us count our blessings and be grateful for what we have:

To realize
The value of a sister/brother
Ask someone
Who doesn’t have one.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam…

That’s just a portion of it, but you get the idea: Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think, because someone has always got bigger problems than you do.

I’m not a big fan of this kind of reasoning. Mostly because for me, there’s just something inherently wrong with making yourself feel better because someone is eating a bigger crap sandwich than you are.

Comparing ourselves with others–whether their lives are easier or harder–is never a good idea. If you’re struggling, rest assured there are others who are also struggling. Life is a series of peaks and valleys, and while no two life experiences are identical, we all have our share of high and low points.

Sometimes life is savored and enjoyed.

Other times it feels like an act of endurance.

And even though I just finished telling you that comparing yourself to others is never a good idea, I’m about to ask you to do just that.

Because on my very worst day, I could have honestly said,

“At least I’m not Dwayne.”

Editor’s Note: I may or may not have written that entire introduction just so I could post the above commercial.

“Man, that thing does not like Dwayne.”

Snort!

The year was 1986. Twenty year old me was very much attuned to the music of the day: from Heart to Huey Lewis and the News, Stevie Nicks to Little Stevie Windwood. I was down with Peter Gabriel, INXS, The Dire Straights, Van Halen, Human League, ZZ Top, Sade, Bon Jovi, Level 42, Madonna, Prince and yes–even Scritti Politti. I’ve always had a rather diverse taste in music. Still do.

Whenever someone would ask “Have you heard that new song by so-and-so?” Typically, I had. If it was on the radio, MTV or VH1, it was a pretty safe bet I’d heard it. (Remember when they actually played videos on MTV and VH1? Ah, good times…) Even if you didn’t know who the artist was or the name of the song, all I really needed was for you to sing a few bars, and I would know which song you were talking about and who sang it.

Which is why I was completely perplexed by my friend Kim one day. We were sitting in her apartment talking when she asked me if I’d heard this new song. “I know you’ve heard it”, she said. “They play it on the radio all the time.”

“How does it go?” I asked her.

“Get a job…”, she sings.

“What???”

“That’s all I can remember, but I KNOW you know this song. Get a job…”

At this point, I’ve move past being perplexed. I’m simply laughing at her.

“Are you sure those are the words? Get a job?” I ask her.

“Yes! You’ve heard it! I know you have! Get a job…”

“Um…yeah. Have you been drinking? I don’t know the Get a Job song.”

The funny thing is, I did know the Get a Job song. And when the Get a Job song came on my car radio while driving home from her place, I had to pull over because I was laughing so hard.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Get a Job Song:

Also known in some circles as “The Way It Is”, it was the first hit for Bruce Hornsby and the Range.

I found it funny that Kim would remember that one line in the song, because it only appears in the first verse. Not in the chorus, not in the bridge. Just the last line of the first verse. Had she sung, “That’s just the way it is”, I would have known what she was talking about immediately, because duh, that’s the name of the song and the first line of the chorus. It’s part of the central message of the song:

That’s just the way it is
Some things’ll never change
That’s just the way it is
Ha, but don’t you believe them

Why would she remember that one line? Who knows? Maybe she had been drinking. Maybe she remembered it because in the context of the song, the line was pretty outrageous: “The man in a silk suit hurries by, as he catches the poor old lady’s eye, just for fun he says Get a job.” I won’t argue that the line is a powerful one. It helps set up the central message of the song, even though when I heard it out of context it made absolutely no sense at all.

Is there a point to this walk down memory lane? Actually, yes.

If you’re going to argue what the central message of a song is, it’s probably best you know the song yourself in the first place, instead of hearing it second hand and assuming your source of information is correct.

And if you don’t know the entire song, you should at least know the chorus.

A final charge to Timothy from the Apostle Paul:

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. ~ 2 Timothy 3:10-17

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Okay seminary students and those in positions of leadership at your local house of worship, how many of you have seen and/or used this particular model? If I understand this correctly, PRAYER is the foundation, MISSIONS, DISCIPLESHIP, FELLOWSHIP, MINISTRY & STEWARDSHIP are the pillars that support WORSHIP.

I suppose it’s a decent enough model, but here’s my problem with it: If you remove one or more of the center pillars, WORSHIP is still supported by the remaining outer pillars. Perhaps not the strongest support, but still, it holds up. MISSIONS and STEWARDSHIP are critical aspects of a healthy church, but not superior to the remaining pillars. Besides, I don’t ever recall reading that we are the Building of Christ. (While that’s technically true, 1 Peter 2:5 says “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” This is in context of Jesus as the living cornerstone, not the cornerstone of an inorganic, static building.) I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that we’re supposed to be the Body of Christ. Oh yeah, here it is:

12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body. – 1 Corinthians 12:12-20

If the church is the Body of Christ, doesn’t it make sense that the model should be a body?

Maybe something like this:

• The head would represent prayer. Without it, the rest of the body could not sustain itself.
• The torso, or core would represent worship. Obviously, the head is not self-sustaining, and the torso by itself is of little use.
• The head (prayer) and core (worship) could function to form the body, but with extreme limitations. It could communicate with and praise God, but what about the other vitally important parts that form the complete body?
• What if one of the two legs were to represent ministry?
• And maybe the other leg represented equipping?
• Perhaps one of the arms could represent missions,
• And the other arm could represent outreach.

Yeah, that makes more sense to me. I like the idea of the church being a living, breathing vital body, made up of many parts all working in harmony with one another to form the Body of Christ. If this model was studied, understood and lived out by a church and its members, would they model Christ more effectively? In this model, maybe people would no longer associate a church with a building. Wouldn’t it be cool if, instead of someone saying, “Bob goes to such and such church”, they would say, “Bob is part of such and such church”. Maybe it’s semantics to you, but I think that it might begin to change how people viewed the church as a whole. Perhaps some people would forgo the attitude of “What does this church have to offer me?”, and begin to excitedly ask “What specific part am I meant to be here? How do I get the sense of fellowship and purpose that the people of this church seem to have?” That would be fantastic!

The next question I would ask is, “What is this model supposed to look like?” I don’t know about you, but using a representation of the physical Jesus Christ seems — I don’t know — disrespectful. Since I’m all about keeping things simple, what if you used a stick person? Okay, maybe that’s too simple (and lame). But what if you happened to be part of this core group of amazingly diverse and talented people? For the sake of argument, say the pastor of this group got the whole “church represented as a body” concept while taking post graduate classes at a Midwestern bible college and wrote it out on a piece of paper. Then he had a friend with a graphics design background make a mock-up of this idea. Awhile later, he asked an incredibly creative core group member with daft computer animation and graphic arts skills to come up with the final model. I wonder if it would look something like this:

Because that would be AWESOME!

(Please don’t misunderstand me — I’m not suggesting that a picture has that kind of power, but I think what it represents certainly does!)

Those of you who have been reading this blog since the early days (all 3 of you), may remember that I have done a couple of posts on a book by Timothy Keller, “The Reason for God”. Well, I finally finished reading it. Ordinarily, it doesn’t take me 7 months to finish a book. I have a plethora of excuses for not finishing until yesterday, but the only one worth of sharing here is that Keller’s writing is not something I can simply scan lightly. If I am not completely focused while reading, I am very likely to miss something very profound. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I am easily distracted…

Two Forms of Self-Centeredness:
In Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll comes to realize that he is “an incongruous compound of good and evil.” His bad nature is holding his good nature back, he believes. He can aspire to do things, but he cannot follow through on them. Therefore he comes up with a potion that can separate out his two natures. His hope is that his good self, which will come out during the day, will be free from the influence of evil and will be able to realize its goals. However, when he takes the potion one night and his bad side comes out, he is far more evil than he expected. He describes his evil self using classic Christian categories:

“I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine…(Edward Hyde’s) every act centered on self.”

Edward Hyde is so named not just because he is hideous but because he is hidden. He thinks solely of his own desires; he doesn’t care in the slightest who he hurts in order to gratify himself. He kills if someone gets in his way. Stevenson is saying that even the best of people hide from themselves what is within–an enormous capacity for egotism, self-absorption, and regard for your own interests over those of all others. Self-aggrandizement is at the foundation of so much of the misery of the world. It is the reason that the powerful and the rich are indifferent to the plight of the poor. It is the reason for most of the violence, crime, and warfare in the world. It is at the heart of most cases of family disintegration. We hide from ourselves our self-centered capacity for acts of evil, but situations arise that act as a “potion” and out they come.

Once Jekyll realizes that he has this capacity for evil acts, he decides to clamp down heavily on this terrible self-centeredness and pride at the core of his being. In a sense, he “gets religion.” He solemnly resolves not to take the potion anymore. He devotes himself to charity and good works, partially as atonement for what Edward Hyde has done, and partially as an effort to simply smother his selfish nature with acts of unselfishness.
However, one day Dr. Jekyll is sitting on a bench in Regents Park, thinking about all the good he has been doing, and how much better a man he was, despite Edward Hyde, than the great majority of people.

“I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful and of some good. You know how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others…(But as) I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect…at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde.”

This is a deadly turn of events. For the first time Jekyll becomes Hyde involuntarily, without the potion, and this is the beginning of the end. Unable to control his transformations any longer, Jekyll kills himself. Stevenson’s insight here is, I think, profound. Why would Jekyll become Hyde without the potion? Like so many people, Jekyll knows he is a sinner, so he tries desperately to cover his sin with great piles of good works. Yet his efforts do not actually shrivel his pride and self-centeredness, they only aggravate it. They lead him to superiority, self-righteousness, pride and suddenly — look! Jekyll becomes Hyde, not in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.
Sin and evil are self-centeredness and pride that lead to oppression against others, but there are two forms of this. One form is being very bad and breaking all the rules, and the other form is being very good and keeping all the rules and becoming self-righteous. There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. The first is by saying, “I am going to live my life the way I want.” The second is described by Flannery O’Connor, who wrote about one of her characters, Hazel Motes, that “he knew that the best way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.” If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and you and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior. You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus.
That, ironically, is a rejection of the gospel of Jesus. It is a Christianized form of religion.