Lenten Reflection: Irreconcilable Differences

The following is the first in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

Irreconcilable Differences

A reflection on the preface to C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:13-14 (NRSV)

Purgatory is the waiting room

Between Heaven and Hell

Which door do I choose?

Only time can tell

If I win or lose

From "Purgatory" by Phoenix/NEBULIN

In the late 18th century, William Blake wrote a book titled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

A century and a half later, C.S. Lewis wrote an allegorical novel titled The Great Divorce because he believed that some pairings - like Heaven and Hell - have irreconcilable differences and thus were never meant to happen.

The Great Divorce is a surrealistic story about a group of ghosts from Hell who take a bus ride to Heaven.  Strangely, though all of the ghosts are more than welcome to stay in Heaven, a number of them, of their own free will, get back on the bus for the return trip to Hell.  Normally it wouldn't seem to make much sense that someone who had the opportunity to escape eternal damnation to a place of infinite happiness would choose to go back, but, for some reason, as nonsensical as it sounds, Lewis apparently considered it a very likely possibility.

One important point Lewis tries to get across in this novel is that, if a person is in a bad way, she will never get out of it by continuing on the path that got her there.  As painful as it might be, some course correction, if not a total 180-degree turn, will be necessary.  In Lewis's own words,
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.  A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it fresh from that point, never by simply going on.  Evil can be undone, but it cannot "develop" into good.

Needless to say, Lewis is preaching for repentance in this book, so I can think of no better time to take a journey through this story than the season of Lent, a time on the church calendar set aside for introspection and repentance.  I hope that you, the reader, will join me on this journey through this strange and fantastical story.  Over the next six weeks, I will be posting a reflection every few days, roughly one per chapter.¹  If you would like to read the story for yourself, it can be found in the religion section of most local bookstores and also in various electronic formats.  This series of blog posts is not meant to be an exhaustive study of this work, so, if you have any insights I have not covered, please feel free to share them in the comments.  As always, any comments or questions are welcomed.

As we rethink our understandings of Heaven and Hell and consider why various ghosts decide to get back on the bus, it is my hope that we will look within and ask ourselves if there might be any any reason we would make the same decision if we were in their shoes.  I think that, over time, we will come to see that this story is less about the "hereafter" and more about the "here and now."


Notes:

1. I would like to thank my friends from Ignite who journeyed through this book with me over the past few weeks.  Without them, this series of reflections would not have been possible.

The photograph of the British bus was taken by Simon Osborne and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.  The photograph was made monochrome by Tony Snyder.

Sermon: All Things to All People

Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on February 8, 2015.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

All Things to All People

Audio Version

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (NRSV)

Give me Your eyes for just one second

Give me Your eyes so I can see

Everything that I keep missing

Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted

The ones that are far beyond my reach

Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten

Give me Your eyes so I can see

From "Give Me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath

At the beginning of the 2011 thriller The Adjustment Bureau, David Norris, an audacious young congressman portrayed by Matt Damon, loses an election in which he is the incumbent.  When the time comes to give the concession speech, Norris abandons the speech he prepared and comes clean about some of the utter nonsense involved in a political campaign.  He confesses that his campaign team paid $7300.00 to hire a consultant to tell him how much he should scuff up his shoes.  Their rationale was that, if his shoes weren't scuffed up enough, he would appear out of touch with blue-collar workers but that, if his shoes were scuffed up too much, he would not appeal to wealthy lawyers and bankers.  Norris admits that the blue and red striped tie he wore was chosen over fifty-six other ties by a team of specialists, because the color of one's tie coveys a message of its own.  He tells his audience that his previous speeches were crafted based on input from focus groups.¹

Norris and his team put forth all this effort so that the voting population would find him both relatable and worthy of a position of leadership.

---

The church in the port city of Corinth was in a bad way.  Paul, who originally planted this community of faith, has received reports that the people have divided themselves into factions, some pledging loyalty to him, others pledging loyalty to another who shepherded the congregation in his absence.  He has also received reports of promiscuity and litigation.  Paul writes a letter to the Corinthian believers to address some of the problems within the congregation.  He reminds his readers that, as followers of Christ, their allegiance is to God and not to any of God's servants.  He urges them to pursue loving, committed, monogamous relationships as opposed to hedonistic, promiscuous lifestyles.  He encourages them to work out their differences within the church instead of dragging each other before corrupt government officials.  He challenges them to put one another's needs ahead of their own so that they might not cause each other to stumble spiritually.²

Paul goes on to write that, even though he might have certain liberties as one set free by the grace of God and certain privileges as an apostle of Jesus Christ, he has set all of these things aside for the sake of the people he sought to serve.  He did not want anything to get in the way of their hearing and receiving the Gospel.³  He then makes a rather provocative statement: he says, "I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some."

In our day and time, when we use the phrase "all things to all people," we typically mean something very different from what Paul meant in his letter to the Corinthians.  As a person who is constantly weighed down by what he believes to be other people's expectations of him, I once lamented, in one of my more desperate moments, "I can't be all things to all people!"  Paul, in his letter, is not in any way claiming that he has somehow managed meet the wants, needs, and expectations of every person he met.  What Paul is saying is that he sought to become like the people he met.  When he ministered to Jewish people, he was a Jew who maintained a kosher diet and followed the Jewish Law.  When he ministered to non-Jewish people, the Gentiles, he was like a non-Jewish person, one who did not know the Law.  When he ministered to the weak and powerless, he was meek and humble.

So when Paul says that he became "all things to all people," is he saying that he was simply trying to be relatable to others?  At first it might sound as if Paul is trying to convince the people around him that they should listen to him and follow his lead because he is just like them, not unlike the politician trying to figure out how much to scuff up his shoes.  I would like to suggest that maybe Paul's becoming "all things to all people" is not mere advertising or politicking but rather something much more profound.

To truly understand what Paul is doing, perhaps it would be helpful to first take a moment to consider his background and his motivations.

In a past life, Paul was a staunch Pharisee who kept the Jewish Law to the letter, meaning that he kept himself pure from anything worldly or unclean.  He had the privilege of being mentored in the faith by a prominent rabbi named Gamaliel.  Like any good Jewish man, Paul was proud of his heritage.  He was a son of the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Israel's very first king, and he was originally named Saul after that same king.  Saul was a defender of the faith who sought to keep his religion pure.  He combated the growing contingent of heretics who proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth, a criminal executed for blasphemy and sedition, was the Messiah and that this Jesus had been resurrected from the dead.  Saul oversaw the execution of the apostate Stephen who had the gall to accuse the religious leaders of murdering their own Messiah.  He even got permission from the chief priests to track down the heretics who fled to the town of Damascus and to extradite them to Jerusalem.⁴

Considering such a background, it is no small matter for Paul to say, with honesty, that he became like a Gentile to reach Gentiles.

While Saul was on his way to Damascus, a blinding light forced him to his knees, and he heard a loud voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?"  He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" and the voice answered, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  Saul arose unable to see, perhaps beginning to realize he had been blind long before that moment.  He was lead by his traveling companions into Damascus where he waited in the dark, praying, realizing that he had been persecuting the servants of God and that he had pitted himself against the God he believed he had been faithfully serving.⁵

After three days, Saul was visited by a man named Ananias, one of the people he went to Damascus to persecute.  Ananias called him "brother," placed his hands over his eyes, and told him to receive his sight.  The flakes fell from his eyes and he was able to see once again.⁶  One might say that, in some sense, he was able to see clearly for the first time in his life.  Everything changed for Saul: none of the things he once cherished mattered to him any longer.⁷  He had been saved from himself; he had been forgiven for the horrors he had committed; and he had found a new family among the people he once hated.  He discovered a new purpose in life: he wanted the whole world to experience the Salvation he had experienced.  With the same zeal with which he once defended his faith, he traveled throughout the Roman Empire sharing the saving love and grace of Jesus Christ with anyone who would listen.

Paul wanted to invite the people of the world into the experience of God's saving love and grace, but, at the same time, he knew that he could not invite another person into his experience unless he was willing to first step into the other person's experience.  To reach out to the Jews who did not yet know Christ, he drew from his own heritage, observing the rules of his religion, all the while remembering that, by the grace of God, he was no longer under the Law.  To reach out to the Gentiles, whom he did not want to burden with the notion that they had to become Jewish, he put his culture and the Law of his religion aside, never forgetting his duty to the law of Christ.  To reach out to the weak and powerless, he kept his pride in check and he strove to practice humility.

I think that, when Paul became "all things to all people," he was not merely putting on different personas to win people over but that he was actually expressing solidarity with the people he was trying to reach.  He was not trying to be relatable to people; he was trying to relate to people.  He was not trying to meet every want, need, and expectation; he was only trying to meet one need, the comfort of knowing that one is not alone.  I imagine that, in your darker moments, it wouldn't mean very much to you for someone to patronizingly say, "I was just like you once," as if he had just descended from his proverbial mountaintop to do you a favor.  I imagine it would mean much more to you for a person to demonstrate that he or she actually understands you.

Many Christians engage in what I like to call "guerrilla evangelism."  They offer the solution to all of life's problems in the form of a three step process accompanied by a handful of Bible verses, all neatly packaged in a pamphlet or in a well rehearsed spiel that could be delivered while in line at Wal-Mart.  This hit-and-run method is nothing like Paul's style of evangelism.  Paul actually left his comfort zone, got to know people who were different from him, and walked a mile in their shoes.  He wrote long letters to the congregations he planted, in the same way one might write a long letter to a loved one.  We don't really know how to help people unless we can relate to them, and we will never be able to relate to them unless we actually care enough about them to get to know them.  As the old saying goes, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Of course, Paul wasn't doing anything particularly innovative: he was merely following the example of his Savior.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the same in essence as God, "light from light, true God of true God," but He held His divinity loosely.  He left Heaven, put on human flesh, became mortal, and came to earth to live among humanity.⁸  To borrow a phrase from Eugene Peterson, He "moved into the neighborhood" with us.⁹  Jesus danced at weddings, cried at funerals, and enjoyed dinner with the good and the bad.  He walked in our shoes for thirty-three years, experiencing the full range of human emotions, even the feeling of being forsaken by God.  The Incarnation, the life of Jesus Christ from the manger to the cross, was God's ultimate act of solidarity with the human beings God created.¹⁰  It was this Jesus whom Paul wanted the world to know, and it was the example of this Jesus that Paul sought to follow.

One of the most important things we're called to do as followers of Jesus Christ is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  St. James, the brother of Jesus, calls this command the "royal law."¹¹  St. Paul says that the entirety of the Jewish Law is summarized in this one command.¹²  Jesus himself paired this command with the command to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength as the two great commandments on which all other religious rules are derived.¹³  Perhaps it is this law, to love one's neighbor as oneself, Paul references when he writes that he is "under Christ's law."  Can we truly love our neighbors as we love ourselves if we are not willing to put ourselves in their shoes?

Tony Kriz, known by many as "Tony the Beat Poet," confesses in his book Aloof that, when he was in college, there was one group of people he hated with a passion - fraternity boys.  He hated the way they pompously strutted around campus; he hated their wardrobe; he hated their stupid secret handshakes; he hated their hazing rituals; and he hated the way they supposedly mistreated women.  Over time, he found it in his heart to earnestly pray for the frat boys on his campus, but eventually he realized that there was only one thing he could do to overcome his prejudice against them.  After much resistance to the thought, he finally pledged a fraternity, donned khakis and a lettered sweatshirt, and became what he hated.  Over the remainder of his college career he came to view the other boys in his fraternity, not just as a bunch guys in need of prayer, but as brothers whom he loved.  Looking back on his experience in the fraternity, Kriz wonders if maybe Paul stepped into other people's shoes, not only for the sake of others, but for his own sake as well, that he might overcome his prejudices.¹⁴

In the late aughts, human "guinea pig" Morgan Spurlock hosted 30 Days, a television series that gave people the opportunity to walk for thirty days in the shoes of people very different from them.  On one episode, Spurlock spent a month in a penitentiary with convicted criminals.  On another episode, a volunteer border patrol guard spent thirty days with a family of undocumented immigrants and even lived as one himself.  On another, an atheist spent a month with a family of conservative Christians.  The people who participated in this television project, by spending time with people very different from them and living as they live, began to see people they once judged in a new light.¹⁵

We might not have such intense opportunities to walk in the shoes of other people, but we do have another, much simpler, option: we can offer other people a listening, nonjudgmental ear.  So often, when we think we're listening to someone else, our attention is actually split between what the other person is saying and what we're planning to say in response.  What if, when other people shared their stories with us, we actually gave them one hundred percent of our attention, with open minds and open hearts?  What if we put aside all of our preconceived notions about other people and immersed ourselves in their stories, imagining ourselves in their shoes?  We just might develop empathy, the ability to understand another person's emotions and perspectives.

Our tendency is not to put ourselves into other people's shoes but rather to put other people in our own shoes.  We judge their actions and their choices based on what we think we would do in their situations, even though we likely aren't in their situations and haven't been formed by the experiences that made them who they are.  According to the Greek Philosopher Epictetus, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."  Similarly St. James writes, "Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger,"¹⁶ and to this I would add, "slow to judge and slow to form opinions."  We must be quick to listen to people's stories, slow to tell them what we think they should do, and very slow to form opinions about them.

I think it only fair to warn you that stories can be dangerous.  If you want to cling to a worldview in which you are one of the good guys and in which someone different from you is one of the bad guys, then you had better insulate yourself from the experiences of others.  Otherwise, if you truly listen to other people's stories, with an open heart devoid of judgment, then you just might catch a glimpse of the world through other people's eyes.  Then you might have no choice but to change your worldview or at least to hold it a little more loosely.

Only once we have stepped into the experiences of others can we invite others into our own experiences, and we do so by sharing our own stories.  I would argue that witnessing has nothing to do with mechanically regurgitating Bible verses and Church doctrines and everything to do with sharing one's own story of faith and redemption.  The story of Paul's encounter with Christ is told in the Acts of the Apostles three times, twice by Paul himself.¹⁷  We testify to what we have seen with our own eyes in our own lives, and we do so honestly, with our defenses down.  To the poor, we speak from our own poverty, whatever form that takes; to the weak, we speak from our own weakness; and, to the broken, we speak from our own brokenness.

In the end, we're all the same: we're all in need of love and grace.  Those of us who have experienced God's love and grace are called to share that same love and grace with others.  In the words of evangelist D.T. Niles, "Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread."  Perhaps we cannot truly be "all things to all people," but we can reach out to people in ways that demonstrate that we are for them and not against them.  We step into the experiences of others and share our own experiences with them that we may invite them into an experience of God's love and grace.

Amen.


Notes:

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385826/
2. 1 Corinthians 1-8
3. 1 Corinthians 9:1-18
4. See Philippians 3:4-6, Acts 22:3-5, and Acts 7:58.
5. See Acts 9:1-9.  Barry Taylor refers to this event as Paul's "revelation of darkness."
6. See Acts 9:10-19 and Acts 22:12-16.
7. Philippians 3:7
8. See Phil 2:5-11, John 1:1-18, and the Nicene Creed.
9. John 1:14 (The Message)
10. Tony Jones.  Questions that Haunt Christianity: Volume 1.  2013, the JoPa Group.  ch. 9
11. James 2:8
12. Galatians 5:14
13. Matthew 22:34-40
14. Tony Kriz.  Aloof: Figuring Out Life with a God Who Hides.  2014, Thomas Nelson.  pp. 97-101
15. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437696/
16. James 1:19 (NRSV)
17. See Acts 9:1-19, Acts 22:3-16, and Acts 26:4-18.

The image of the shoes is public domain.

Advent Perspective: The Darkness Before the Dawn

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

The Darkness Before the Dawn

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness -

on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV)

Glory to God in the highest

Peace on Earth, good will to all men

Let all of the world sing the chorus of joy

Because hope was born this night

From "Hope Was Born This Night" by Sidewalk Prophets

It has been said that Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year.  This year, as I was walked around the local shopping mall on the day before Halloween, I noticed that Santa's workshop had already been set up.  In mid-November, soft rock radio stations started playing Christmas songs all day every day.  Perhaps I am letting my cynicism speak for me, but I cannot help but think that all the early Christmas ambiance is intended to get people in the mood to spend money by subconsciously appealing to their previous experiences of shopping for Christmas presents.

Along with "Christmas Creep," as some have named it, there is another phenomenon that has been observed in recent years: many people, particularly those who work for retailers, have been greeting people with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."  Outraged by a supposed "War on Christmas," many Christians have been fighting to "keep Christ in Christmas."  Though I fully understand that Jesus is "the reason for the season," hearing people say "Happy Holidays" doesn't really bother me, because I feel that what the prevailing culture has been calling Christmas and what the Church observes as Christmas are actually two very different things.  I believe that what many call Christmas is actually a hijacking of a sacred celebration for economic purposes, so I don't really mind if people don't call it "Christmas."

On the Church calendar, there are two high holidays, Christmas and Easter, both of which are preceded by more somber seasons of preparation.  The Church and the prevailing culture celebrates this time of year in very different ways.  For many, the holiday season is the end of the year, but, for the Church, it is the beginning of the year.  For many, December 25 marks the end of the Christmas season, but, for the Church, December 25 is only the first of the twelve days of Christmas.  In the midst of the the Christmas shopping season, the Church is observing the season of Advent.

Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas.  While many of us prepare for Christmas by shopping for presents for our loved ones and by attending potlucks with our friends and coworkers, many also prepare for Christmas by looking inward.  Many think of Advent as a season of repentance, not unlike the season of Lent which precedes Easter.  The Scripture passages typically read in Churches during this season tell of the ministry of John the Baptist who called people to repentance in preparation for the coming of their long-awaited Savior.

Ever since I was a child, what has stood out to me the most about the season of Advent is the lighting of the candles on the Advent wreath.  On each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas, churches that observe Advent light a candle, the first for hope, the second for peace, the third for joy, and the fourth for love.  On Christmas Eve, a fifth candle is lighted for Christ Himself.

Two years ago, at my home church's Christmas Eve service, my pastor did something I had never seen before: she extinguished the candles for hope, peace, joy, and love before lighting the candle for Christ.  At that time, Advent took on a whole new meaning for me.

We light a candle for hope, yet the lives of many are marked by despair.  Many people in the world are stuck in situations from which they cannot find any means of escape.  To borrow a phrase from Henry David Thoreau, many "lead lives of quiet desperation."

We light a candle for peace, yet many live in the midst of conflict.  Many people in the world live in war zones.  Such an area of conflict might be an embattled region on the other side of the globe, a violent household down the street, or a person's own troubled mind.

We light a candle for joy, yet the experience of many is one of sorrow.  Ten percent of the population of my country need antidepressants just to get through the day,¹ and for many people, the holiday season is a time that evokes deep sadness.

We light a candle for love, yet many are afflicted by hatred.  Many people in the world suffer because they are hated by other people, and many people in the world are poisoned by the hatred they harbor for others.

Nowadays, I like to think of Advent as a season of longing.  We light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love, not because we possess such things, but because, in the depths of our souls, we yearn for them.  After all, a person has no need to light candles unless it's dark.  In our longing for hope, peace, joy, and love, we are forced to confront the despair, conflict, sorrow, and hatred in the world and in our own hearts.  We seek hope, peace, joy, and love in the world, but what the world has to offer is often empty and shallow.  Time and time again, the world lets us down.

On one occasion, Jesus warns His audience about a time of great suffering, a time so dire that the sun, moon, and stars will cease to shine.  He says that, in this dark time, people "will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory" to gather up His people.²  One writer records Jesus as saying, "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."³  Many think that Jesus is speaking about His return to the earth, a "Second Coming" as some people call it, but I think these words have something to say about the way Christ meets the world.  The world can be a very dark place, but it is in the midst of such circumstances that Christ breaks into the world, a single light in the darkness.

Jesus once said, "I am the light of the world."⁴  On another occasion, Jesus announced to His audience, "You are the light of the world."⁵  So is Christ the "light of the world," or are we?  The answer is, of course, "Yes."  Christ is like the sun, the source of light, and we are like the moon which catches the light of the sun and reflects it into places of darkness.  When we draw near to the light of Christ, our own hearts ignite, and we carry that light with us.  Hope, peace, joy, and love are results of the presence of God in a person's life.⁶

Advent is like the darkness before the dawn.  Amid the frenzy of the season, we remember that the world is desperate for hope, peace, joy, and love.  On Christmas, we remember the Good News that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to bring light into a dark world.  We are all called to carry that light with us throughout the world, sharing with others the hope, peace, joy, and love we've found.

May we not forget those who yearn to see the light.

Come, Lord Jesus.


Notes:

1. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/a-glut-of-antidepressants/
2. Mark 13:1-27 (NSRV)
3. Luke 21:28 (NRSV)
4. John 9:5
5. Matt 5:14
6. Love, joy, and peace are among what St. Paul calls the "Fruit of the Spirit."  See Galatians 5:22-23.  I believe that hope could be considered a fruit of the Spirit as well.

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by me at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina.