Living the Gospel, Part One
Happy New Year, 2015.
Its been a while since I've written… That's not entirely true. Its been a while since I've posted. I'd call it writer's block but I don't think that's entirely true either. Feels more like transitional block; that unsettled feeling you get when moving from one paradigm to another. Unguarded and a bit vulnerable. Like that sensation you get when you are moving to a new location or before a job interview: you know everything is changing and yet you wonder just how far reaching the change may be. It's unpredictable. I dare you to move is the challenge. Sometimes we simply wait to see what will happen. The most apostolic among us rush headlong into the void. I've played both ends against the middle in fits and starts.
Over the past few years, perhaps the last five or so, I've largely been occupied with a pursuit to understand what I believe. Why do I believe? What substantiates my belief? What does it mean? Theology. I didn't know it at the time; perspective becomes more clear with some distance. There was no grand plan. I held no particular roadmap. “The wind blows where it listeth.” And while I'm certain that it “didn't just happen” in that the sovereignty of the Lord is always in play, I realize now what I did not understand then. In other words, I knew the details of what I was doing but did not see the greater pattern. I was looking to systemize my theology; to make some sense out of the connections and questions. My efforts were spent on gathering as much knowledge as possible regarding only one of those two questions every man asks: “Who am I” and “Why am I here?” Hindsight and reflection can be very workable tools. In that mirror, then, I find that most of what has recently captivated my attention pertains to matters of identity (“Who am I?”). In a world stuffed with pre-packaged proposals, it seemed necessary to look to original sources, and those who would cite to that authority, to answer the question. It was, and is, a worthy objective and one for which I have no regrets. I liked the landscape and enjoyed the walk; I have not yet arrived.
But the books, aside from scripture, have begun to lose their luster. Especially the new ones. Summer has faded to Autumn and the once colorful foliage is now “dry leaves on the dirty ground.” And while old books will combat the prejudices of the current age, I nonetheless feel as if the news cycle is beginning to repeat itself. I've already read this “late breaking” report on the crawler. The authors are beginning to repeat themselves; they are beginning to repeat eachother. I've already seen this movie.
To be sure, almost no journey is complete so long as there is breath in our lungs. Like Bunyan's pilgrim or MacDonald's Anodos, there are always Frost-y “miles to go before I sleep.” Nonetheless, if we are paying attention the quest for knowledge evolves into understanding; and understanding, with some experience, ages into wisdom. I am hopeful that will come to pass in my own life.
In this season, the quest for right thinking is being wedded to a conviction for right living. Not a self-righteous, therapeutic moralistic “right living” soapbox. Being “better” than a neighbor is not the goal. It'd be a lousy objective and a petty life if that was all that was offered. Rather, the compulsion of living the gospel has hijacked my thinking and taken center stage at the county fair. Living it, in all of its glorious and messy beauty, is the metanarrative, the biggest idea. It is both/and not either/or…
And it comes with plenty of questions…
Questions that constantly pull at the sweater thread of what I think I have already learned… What does it mean to live the gospel, the good news?
Isaiah 52:7 says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'”
What does it mean to have beautiful feet? And how is the good news published today? To whom and for how long?
I recently heard a Texas pastor state that Sunday morning teachings without greater application are akin to using “a BB gun against a battleship.”
Francis Schaeffer, in “The Great Evangelical Disaster” said, “The freedom that once was founded on a biblical consensus and a Christian ethos has now become autonomous freedom, cut loose from all constraints… And when this happens, there really are very few alternatives. All morality becomes relative, law becomes arbitrary, and society moves toward disintegration. In personal and social life, compassion is swallowed up by self-interest… At this point the words "right” and “left” will make little difference. They are only two roads to the same end; the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go into chaos-and most people would accept it.“
So, that's our setting. This is where the chapters of our book are played out. Here is our stage. Against this backdrop, what does it look like to live the gospel? To really live the gospel? Not to play church, not to moralize, not to engage a new legalism…but to live the gospel. Like Jesus Christ.
Over the next few weeks, let's look to the Word together and develop this idea. We'll find some answers together; not all of them, but the ones that set us on the right road. The Spirit will lead. Stick with me. As the newscasters said many years ago, "Film at 11.”
And Happy New Year.
