Connection and Communion

I have 1,193 friends.

At least, that's what Facebook says. It keeps a log of my friends and, by last count, I have 1,193.

I was resistant to Facebook at first. The obvious pluses to Facebook are that it is an easy way to network, to catch up with old friends, and to connect people to events.

The major minus to Facebook is that it seeks to address the deep, human need for connection with a shallow solution. Forget about face to face connections. You can have Facebook.

I often look at that number, 1,193, and wonder how many of these people I have actually met, how many I actually know. I'm a guy who says "yes" to any Facebook friend request, so I have a lot of Facebook friends. But I often wish I could gather them all together at Zilker park and begin to form some real connection.

We humans long for connection. Facebook understands this and it gives us a way to feel connected. But we still often feel disconnected, isolated, and alone. Facebook doesn't cut it.

And, oftentimes, face to face isn't any better. Our connections irl are just as shallow as those we make online. We're too afraid of what it would take to make real and lasting connections.

This is why the act of Communion as always been so powerful to me. If I had my way, we'd share Communion every time two Christians met in the same place. Communion is loaded with connections.

First, it connects us to God. For those of us who often feel disconnected from God, Communion is a place in which Christ connects us to our Father. In the incarnation, Jesus puts a human face on God and makes a face to face connection that we cannot experience otherwise. In His body and His blood, we share a connection and communion unlike any other.

This same Communion connects us to one another. Many of us seek to connect to other people and still wind up feeling disconnected. Relationships that ought to have depth, never seem to go past the shallow end. Billy Joel once described the characters in his classic song "Piano Man" as "sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone." Too many of us are sharing that drink, sharing that Facebook outlook that promises "friendship", but offers no meaningful connection. When we share Communion in the blood of Christ, it is a drink that draws us together and fills up the places where loneliness once thrived.

Of course, neither of these connections can happen without the connection of death to resurrection. A lot of us treat Christ like a Facebook friend, requesting friendship, but refusing any meaningful connection. That's because meaningful connection means having to face some things. Face ourselves, face our sin, face our God. Meaningful resurrection means having to die and while everyone wants to go to heaven, no one wants to die to get there. We hope to find the reconciliation of resurrection without having to die to ourselves, our desires, our fear, our pride. And so we miss out on any real connection.

But if we are willing to take the risk that relationship requires, we can be transformed, made new, resurrected, reconciled, connected.

When we are willing to share in Communion with Christ, share in His sufferings, conform to His death, we can begin to experience the power of His resurrection, we can begin to face what must be faced. We can begin to form real connection to God and to one another. 

Hauerwas on Pacifism

I have often been asked why I am a pacifist (though I have often stated that I still struggle with whether there might be Christian exceptions to my pacifism and remain unsure) and heard today a quote from Stanley Hauerwas that pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject:

I am a pacifist so that others will keep me from killing somebody.

Lenten Reading/Cost of Discipleship

During this season of Lent the members of Immanuel will be reading through the first part of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship together. For those who would like in on an online discussion, I will be posting the questions that go with each week's reading/discussion. Here is week one:

Introduction

Bonhoeffer begins his book with three questions:
What did Jesus mean to say to us?
What is His will for us today?
How can He help us to be good Christians in the modern world?
Why is it important to ask these questions? What do they have to do with discipleship?

As you read through the introduction, Bonhoeffer asks almost as many questions as he makes statements. What's one of his questions that you have asked yourself and would like to see answered?

What scripture does Bonhoeffer wrap up his introduction with? Is this the scripture you would expect in a book called "The Cost of Discipleship"? What are your expectations for this book/study?

Lent

The first part of this is appearing in tomorrow's Statesman, but I thought it was worth putting the entire thing here:

Part 1
Why does God hate stuff? That’s the question I was asked once, as the season of Lent was approaching. Lent is a season in which Christians give up stuff for the 40 days leading up to Easter. So the question goes; if the stuff I’m giving up isn’t bad stuff (and, if it is, shouldn’t I give it up for more than 40 days?) than what’s the point of giving it up?

It’s a fair question, and one worth answering as the season of Lent is upon us.

First of all, God doesn’t hate stuff. God isn’t opposed to earthly pleasures, in fact He infuses them with a foundation for meaning. Calls to fasting aren’t meant to deny ourselves of physical things so that we can concentrate on “spiritual” things, but so we can redeem the physical things as spiritual things. Food can become substantive and enjoyable instead of one more thing we shove into a gaping hole. So can entertainment, relationships, sex and other pleasures.

But going back at least to the time of Augustine is the concept of a “God shaped hole” that exists in all of us. Augustine argued that every human being was created with a place inside of them that can only be filled up by the presence of God. He went on to say that humans make the mistake of trying to fill that hole with other things, the things that make them “happy”.

Blaise Pascal argued that the God-shaped hole in the human heart is, in fact, an infinite and terrifying abyss which we try to cover over with all sorts of facades. Then when, eventually, a crack appears in the facade, and we see through it the well of eternal nothingness plunging down forever, we hurl ourselves back in horror. We will do anything to fill that empty space.

So we pour alcohol through the crack in the façade in the hopes of filling the abyss and removing the horror. Of course, any recovering alcoholic will tell you this doesn’t work. Not for very long. Sigmund Freud said in Civilization and Its Discontents that no mood-altering chemicals ultimately perform this job satisfactorily. For a while Freud thought that cocaine could safely do this, and had to learn the hard way, through his own personal experience, that in the long run it worked no better than alcohol.

So we reach for money or sex or power or security. And we discover, either by witnessing it or through first hand experience, these things don’t fill that space either.

Only that which is infinite and completely transcendent, Pascal said, could fill such an infinite abyss.

The Bible says that we cannot love both God and mammon. Mammon is just a word for “stuff” or things. We cannot love both God and things. God is to be loved and things are to be used. And it is increasingly important that we love God and use things, for there is much in our gadget-minded, consumer-oriented society that is encouraging us to love things and use God.

When Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness (this is where the 40 days of Lent comes from), He was tempted by Satan with provision, wealth, and power. The pursuit of happiness. The American Dream. But we are called, as Christ did, to pursue holiness. Jesus’ words to Satan are, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus knows where his blessings come from. His time in the desert has been a reminder of that. He knows to put the giver before the gift.

William Sloane Coffin writes that, “The devil is always suggesting that we compromise our calling by offering us what is good in place of what is best.” He plays on our hunger and he plays on our fear. We’re so afraid to face our own emptiness that we’ll consume anything to make that emptiness go away.

So, in this season of Lent, we follow the example of Christ in the wilderness and make a conscious choice for emptiness.

Now there are many schools of religious thought that teach an embracing of emptiness as the key to happiness. That we must die to ourselves. That a denial of our physical selves will, in and of itself, redeem our spiritual selves. That the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. That is not what Christians proclaim.

We proclaim the physical and spiritual are connected and we witness that in the incarnation of Jesus. If we deny ourselves, it is only so we can take up the cross of Christ. If we die, it is only so we can live again. If we embrace emptiness, it isn’t with emptiness as the end goal, but as a means to an end, experiencing the fullness of God. If we stop grasping at stuff, it is so we can grab hold of God.

I encourage you to give something up this Lenten season. Something you really like. Something you’ll miss. Something that you keeps you from being empty, from facing that abyss. I encourage you to ask God into that time and that place that you normally fill with television or chocolate or shopping. Let this season of Lent be a time when you embrace emptiness in order to better understand the sacrifice of Christ and to be more filled with the Spirit of God.

Part 2
But Lent isn’t just about seeing if you can go without something for 6 weeks or if you can grow closer to God in 6 weeks. Lent is meant to be preparation for something. When Jesus spends His 40 days in the wilderness, it is in preparation for a 3 year ministry that will culminate in a cross. His 40 days weren’t the end of something, but the beginning.

There’s a story that Jesus tells in the gospels about a man who sweeps the demon out of his house. The demon seeks a place to rest and, not finding any, returns to the house to find it unoccupied. Then it goes and talks with seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there.

In the 80’s there was an anti-drug campaign that encouraged us to simply “Just Say No” to drugs. While the slogan was everywhere the campaign was, in the long run, ineffective.

Now what do Lent, demons, and failed drug campaigns have to do with each other? They remind us that what you say “yes” to is as important as what you say “no” to.

A lot of folks suffer through 6 weeks of denial and then return to their old habits. But that isn’t the point of Lent. Our self-denial is about putting things, especially the things we deny ourselves for Lent, in perspective. We ought to leave Lent feeling renewed and ready for what comes next. There’s a reason, after all, that Lent culminates in Easter. The dying we do is meant to lead to resurrection.

Let me give you an example from my own life. Two of the things that I do every Lent are to give up television and engage in some sort of progressive fast. That’s because two of the things I take in without thinking are entertainment and food. Lent is a time for me to remember that the stories I take in are meant to teach and inspire, not just to distract and detract. The food I take in is meant to build me up, not wear me down. So I always end up reaching Easter newly inspired about the way I eat and the way I watch TV, usually committed to doing less of both.

But it isn’t enough for me to simply embrace the mantra of less food and less TV. I need to fill that time and space with something good before the something bad comes back with friends. That can be time in prayer or in study, time with my family and my friends. Committing specific time in the evening to getting to know my wife better so that there suddenly isn’t time to watch that Seinfeld rerun I have memorized.

What happens then is that we begin to experience resurrection. Not just resurrection in our own minds and hearts, but resurrection that pours out into our families and friendships. Resurrection that pours out into our workplace. Resurrection that pours out into our neighborhoods. Our communities can be forever changed if we treat Lent as an opportunity not just to rid ourselves of something old, but to begin something new.

A more recent and more effective anti-drug campaign went something like this: : My Anti-Drug. Fill in the blank. Sports. Reading. Family. Friends. Don’t just sweep out the bad stuff. Fill it up with something good.

And make time for the One who is truly good with a capital G, God. Make sure to pray and to study the Bible and to worship and to serve. Find opportunities to draw nearer to God. Find a community that will do these this with you. Then you will begin to experience true resurrection. And those around you will begin to experience it too.

Worship and a Good Mix

Today a friend asked me what advice I would give if I were Rob Gordon describing how to make a good mix. I think the advice he gives is pretty strong, especially the part about "stuff she'd like." I'd say that a good mix should feature a combination of something you know the listener likes and something you like that you think they will like. That way, the mix shows both that you've been listening and that you have something to say. It is a conversation. The point of a good mix is to connect your heart to someone else's heart.

For some reason, describing a mix tape this way reminded me of the importance of putting together a worship experience, because the purpose, while greater, is, at its core, the same. To connect our heart to the heart of God. You want, first and foremost, to honor the recipient, which is God. But part of how you do that is choosing to say things in a way that is specifically meaningful to you.

I don't think I had every thought of planning worship as making a mixtape for God, but I think there's something to it. What do you think?