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]
“He Shines in All That’s Fair”
I read it way back in November and it made the cut as one of my favorite books of the year, but until now I haven’t blogged about Richard Mouw’s He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace (Eerdmans). Honestly, I just had to let it sit for a while, to settle.
It came highly recommended by someone in the know as a good introduction to common grace theology, a theme I decided I’d do well to actually study a bit, rather than just carrying around in my head various muddled thoughts about what I took it to mean. It’s a small, 101-page book, and as an introduction to such an enormous topic, it’s a delight to read, and it really packs a punch.
Mouw sets the stage by describing two distinct Christian camps: those who tend to emphasize what Christians and non-Christians have in common, and those who tend to emphasize all the differences. It’s right to acknowledge the legitimacy of both commonness and difference, he says. This book has more to do with the latter, but with an important condition: “Our search for the grounds of commonness must be motivated by a faith that cuts against the grain of much of contemporary life and thought.”
To suggest, as common grace theologians do, that God is up to more in the world than just saving souls, may be controversial in some circles. But I agree with Mouw that according to the Bible, God's redemptive purposes are cosmic in scope. Still, Mouw acknowledges that there’s mystery involved, especially when it comes down to the specifics. “Properly understood,” he writes, “common grace theology is an attempt to preserve an area of mystery regarding God’s dealings with humankind.”
While most of us would find it reasonable to affirm that God delights in the beauty of his creation – “glowing sunsets and ocean waves breaking on a rocky coastline and a cherry tree in bloom and the speed of a leopard on the chase” – could it also be true that God “takes a positive interest in how unbelievers use God-given talents to produce works of beauty and goodness” or that he takes an active role in restraining sin and evil, even among those who have not accepted him as Lord? Mouw writes:
The underlying view I am endorsing here posits multiple divine purposes in the world. To state it plainly: I am insisting that as God unfolds his plan for his creation, he is interested in more than one thing. Alongside of God’s clear concern about the eternal destiny of individuals are his designs for the larger creation...
It is important for us in these difficult days to cultivate... modesty and humility in our efforts at cultural faithfulness. But we cannot give up on the important task – which the theologians of common grace have correctly urged upon us – of actively working to discern God’s complex designs in the midst of our deeply wounded world.
Learning discernment, as we all know, is messy business, but it’s essential not just in common grace theology but in all of life. Thankfully, we’re not left to figure it out on our own: we’re given the Holy Spirit and we’re given a local church, “that community where the Spirit is openly at work, regenerating sinners and sanctifying their inner selves.”
There’s so much more I could say about this little book and this very big theme, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I'll revisit common grace theology again before too long, and Richard Mouw too, for that matter.
How do you understand the doctrine of common grace? Do you agree with Mouw’s assertion that God has “multiple divine purposes in the world”? If so, how does that impact how we live?
God’s wonderful, inefficient mess
The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their trust in Christ, gather to know and love him better and learn to love others as he has designed. The church is messy and inefficient, but it is God's wonderful mess - the place where he radically transforms hearts and lives.
- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (P&R Publishing)
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