If one wishes to read a book to add to one’s mental furniture, one must read it with attention. I do not really believe it is necessary to take all the separate steps mentioned in How to Read a Book. In fact, I think there is one enormous emotion almost omitted—I mean love. Instead of reading as a task, why not read because we love the book, or love its subject, or love its author, or anyhow love reading?
There’s no such thing as an intrinsically loving act. So don’t pray that everything you do be intrinsically loving. Pray that you do everything in love.
If the church is the people, then the gatherings and their proceedings are at their worst an excuse to bring those people together that we might realize more our inheritance of God’s kingdom. That means I should not wring my hands to worry about proceedings, whether liturgical as in the the case of UBBC, or low-churchy, as in our house churches. If I am to be unhurried, unworried, and deliberate, then I must be so about church. I will not worry about the way church proceeds. I will simply be deliberate.
Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something, but Horace felt that he could never forgive the President for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on “German Idealism.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “Head and Shoulders” (1920)
How do you reconcile the antinomy between these two excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount?
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-15).
and
Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven…[W]hen you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable giving will be in secret…[W]hen you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret…[W]hen you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by people but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:1,3-4,6,17).
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
[I sent the following email in answer to a question from a friend:]
Hi!
No, there is nothing inherently wrong with using large scale processes and mass communication to train people to do micro church. Recall that Jesus and the first apostles and evangelists did preach to crowds. And some parts of the New Testament were purposely written with the express intent that they be circulated widely. I could be wrong, but I think writing was the most advanced, wide-reaching communication technology of the day!
Nevertheless, there is more than one thing inherently risky about this stuff. Namely, it can too easily:
distract sender and receiver alike from actually living out the message,
distort the message as we subtly begin to prioritize reach over fidelity,
intoxicate with power, and
put the easily measurable things (e.g., conversion rates, audience size) above the more important, harder-to-quantify things (e.g., faithfulness, hope, and love).
So we keep watching and praying that we may not enter into these temptations. We use these tools, but always vigilant against their potentially corrupting influence, which you and I have seen again and again. Maybe it’s kinda like Bilbo and Frodo using the Ring.
I should add that there’s also nothing inherently wrong with a desire for reach itself—provided that the desire is itself merely an extension of a desire for the good of the hearers and not some generalized desire for audience or impact. This can be hard to distinguish, but we must learn. Do we actually care about these people specifically?
Specificity can be a good indication we’re pointed the right direction. Paul really really wanted to preach the News in Rome. He also loved his Jewish brethren so much that he made it a point to preach in synagogues first every time.
I have wrestled on and off over the past several years with the harshness of Jesus’ words to some folks. In some cases, I have been able comprehend the loving meaning behind His words by understanding cultural differences or cultural milieux (e.g., the word about the dead burying their own dead in Matthew). But in a general sense, it still bothered me.
Until today.
There I was, walking up Enterprise Drive midday today, kvetching to You about this, asking you for an understanding—when, boom, it hit me: Carla often cannot evoke the change she wishes to see in me, Sullivan, or Éa without yelling, cursing, or calling us names. Now, to journal this is to make Carla sound like a monster, which she is demonstrably not. She only deploys this strategy when we are apparently refusing to respond to any other approach of hers.
And it works.
Case closed. Jesus wins. He knew what His hearers needed. He spoke harshly because He loved the Pharisees, et al.
Sometimes, behavior change only happens with harsh, hyperbolic epithets.
Life is people. Bored? Be with people. Feel like nothing’s happening? Sidle up next to someone. Conversation will come up if simply put yourself next to someone and apply yourself.
What I really want in this instance, as George MacDonald taught me, isn’t the forgiveness for the consequences of my sins (e.g., the wrath of God) but freedom from my actual sins. I’d like to become the father that doesn’t snap at his son. I don’t want an imputed purity. I actually want to be, myself, pure.
On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
Shame and guilt can be healthy, life-giving emotions. There’s a reason we have them. Sure, shame and guilt can become toxic and debilitating. But let’s not think that there’s something unhealthy about feeling shame or guilt when you do something that violates your conscience. That’s called being a human being.
“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer