Wilderness, grace and the journey to the common good
Seeking the common good is something that most Christians, at least in theory, consider integral to the faith. But what does it actually look like? Where do we find inspiration or instruction for the journey? And where will the journey take us?These are the questions Walter Brueggemann explores in Journey to the Common Good (Westminster John Knox). As a world-renowned Old Testament scholar, he sets out to locate the answers in three places:
- Exodus, which sheds light on the journey from anxiety to neighborliness;
- Jeremiah, an invitation to choose life over death; and
- Isaiah, which helps us move from loss to restoration.
I won’t attempt to do justice to his arguments here, but each of the three is an important way of understanding the journey to the common good.
I found the section on the Exodus particularly meaningful. In the Exodus, we see how those living lives dominated by anxiety and scarcity aren’t likely to seek the common good; they’re going to be too busy simply trying to survive. After God uses Moses to lead his people out of “the anxiety system” of Egypt, God miraculously provides manna (or “wonder bread,” as Brueggemann calls it), demonstrating divine generosity and abundance.
But as the biblical narrative makes clear, the people of God didn’t find it easy to move from the culture of scarcity to the culture of abundance overnight. That’s because having left the anxiety system of Pharaoh, they found themselves not in an ideal place of safety, security and comfort, but rather in the wilderness. Brueggemann writes:
“Wilderness” is a place, in biblical rhetoric, where there are no viable life support systems. “Grace” is the occupying generosity of God that redefines the place. The wonder bread, as a gesture of divine grace, recharacterizes the wilderness that Israel now discovered to be a place of viable life, made viable by the generous inclination of YHWH.
Brueggemann goes on to argue that for us today a similar “departure” is required -- if not from a literal Pharaoh, then from adherence to whatever twenty-first century anxiety systems we find ourselves in. If we buy his argument that living in a culture of anxiety and scarcity all but precludes the pursuit of the common good, then the flip side is that when we experience God’s generosity and abundance (“our daily bread,” you might say) and recognize it for the grace that it is, we are freed up like never before to be good neighbors and to seek the common good.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” says Jesus. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
The journey to the common good takes us from scarcity to abundance, and from abundance to the practice of neighborliness. The challenge for all of us, then, is to cultivate lives of neighborliness right here in the wilderness. It may not be a place entirely to our liking, but it is a place of viable life, “made viable by the generous inclination of YHWH.”
Do we truly believe that the wilderness in which we live can be a place not of scarcity but of abundance? How does that shape our understanding of the journey to the common good?
[Photo credit: Thomas Dwyer/Flickr]
The Meaning of Marriage
On October 31, marriage was in the news: Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphreys were getting divorced. It was a sad spectacle, and though celebrity marriages aren’t exactly known for their longevity, at 72 days this one’s brevity got people talking. "I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision,” Kardashian said in a statement. “I had hoped this marriage was forever, but sometimes things don't work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best."
Less than a week later, surrounded by our families and many of our closest friends at a little garden oasis in North Phoenix, Katie and I made audacious promises to each other: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”
Today is day 73, and by God’s grace, we’re just getting started.
In that week between October 31 and November 6, as it happens, Timothy and Kathy Keller published their book The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (Dutton). My good friend and groomsman Barnabas gave us the book as a gift.
The book is remarkable in all the ways that books on relationships and marriage so often fall flat. Tim and Kathy have no patience for clichés, but instead share their wisdom rooted in three significant things: 37 years of marriage; more than 20 years of ministry in a city (NYC) and a church (Redeemer) largely made up of single people; and last but not least, the Bible’s teachings on the meaning of marriage, and what it has to do with all of us. In the introduction, they write:
It is hard to get a good perspective on marriage. We all see it through the inevitably distorted lenses of our own experience. If you came from an unusually stable home, where your parents had a great marriage, that may have “made it look easy” to you, and so when you get to your own marriage you may be shocked by how much it takes to forge a lasting relationship. On the other hand, if you have experienced a bad marriage of a divorce, either as a child or an adult, your view of marriage may be overly wary and pessimistic. You may be too expectant of relationship problems and, when they appear, be too ready to say, “Yup, here it goes,” and to give up. In other words, any kind of background experience of marriage may make you ill equipped for it yourself.
That may seem like a bit of a downer, but really I think it emphasizes that none of us can assume that a good marriage just happens automatically, and neither can any of us assume that a great marriage is out of the realm of possibility. Throughout the book they show how marriage is designed to be, and indeed can be, great. As a marriage newbie, I didn’t read the book to critique it so much as to soak it in and learn from it, so I won’t dissect it point by point here. Instead, I’ll simply recommend it as what seems to me to be an honest, encouraging, well-informed and well-rounded book for all of us, single or married, old or young.
I particularly appreciated Keller’s interview about the book on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in November.
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I love how he re-frames some predictable (and, yes, leading) questions from the panel, refusing to play the culture wars blame game while also challenging the nearly universal assumption that marriage is designed primarily for our own self-fulfillment. As he writes in the book, marriage is “difficult and painful -- yet rewarding and wondrous.”
I'm glad I read the book so early on in marriage, and I plan to return to it again and again.
For more, check out this one-hour conversation with Tim and Kathy, as they discuss the themes of the book and tell stories from their own experience.
[Photo credit: TimothyKeller.com]
Fighting slavery with a phone number
On Saturday Katie and I attended the first (annual?) Abolition Conference in Tucson at the University of Arizona, focused on local and global efforts to fight human trafficking and slavery (learn more about the problem here). It was presented by some great local players in the fight against slavery: Streetlight Tucson, Southern Arizona Against Slavery, and the U of A Honors College, and several other organizations participated. In the main sessions, we heard from three unique perspectives:
- Kaign Christy with International Justice Mission spoke about the global scope of slavery and what IJM is doing to combat it, largely by strengthening local law enforcement in countries around the world.
- Bradley Myles, executive director and CEO of Polaris Project, told us a bit about his organization's work, as well as a number of very practical resources and reasons for hope that the fight against slavery will be won.
- Linda Smith, former member of US Congress and founder of Shared Hope International, emphasized the story of one girl named Lacy, reminding us all that the victims of slavery are real people, not just statistics.
The conference was fairly well-attended and really well-organized, and it was encouraging to see so much energy around the anti-trafficking cause. It was also great that so many of the speakers focused on practical action steps, rather than just giving us information or making us feel terrible about things (which would be easy to do at an anti-trafficking conference).
Of all the great practical action steps, the single most important take-away was learning about the 24/7/365 toll-free hotline, provided by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. They are working on ramping up a nationwide network with information about law enforcement and social services in every city in the country so when someone calls with a tip or a request, they can be connected with those in a position to help in their own city. Here's information on all the hotline is used for:
- To report a tip;
- To connect with anti-trafficking services in your area; or,
- To request training and technical assistance, general information or specific anti-trafficking resources.
The number is 1-888-3737-888. I added the hotline's number to my phone book, and I hope you'll do the same. Please help spread the word so that those who buy and sell human beings, at least here in the US, would find that they can no longer get away with it.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)
[Photo credit: End Human Trafficking Now!]
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