I think it is essential that we integrate our critical thought with our spiritual discoveries.
“A fruitful interplay exists between the informational [critical thought] and formational [spiritual receptivity] modes. We must have a certain level of information about the biblical passage, some sense of the meaning of the text in its original context, some sense of what God was saying to the intended readers before it can become formational” (Mulholland 61).
I have often thought the true power of the Word of God is when we let it be his true Word and not what we would like it to be. For me this has meant looking at the text using all the Bible study methods at my disposal to try to determine what God is trying to say through this author.
I have found that I am never satisfied with my studies for a sermon until the text has mastered me, breathed new life in me and destroyed me. This has often proved itself to be difficult work, and I often have found myself asking God if I missed the mark in choosing this text because it hasn’t yet shaken me to the core. He impresses on me that the good seldom comes easily and I keep on: reading, rereading, even before I knew what lectio was, until he gets my attention. The text then takes on the spiritual force of true scripture to my soul.
The Spiritual side also must inform the critical study. Barbara Bowe in her book, takes a much more liberal view of scriptures than I do. She betrays her demythologizing tendencies with her reference to the Sea of Reeds (as opposed to the Red Sea), but does it really matter? She still sees and demands the spiritual force of the text to remain.
The understanding of the Bible as being scripture before textbook has allowed me freedom as I have matured. I grew up a fundamentalist, and don’t get me wrong: technically I still am since I still believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. When I was eight or nine I remember sitting down at my dad’s typewriter one December to harmonize the birth stories in the gospels. When I went to college it still shocked and offended my sensibilities to think that Matthew may not have been the first gospel written, after all its the first one in the book! The understanding of the Bible as a sacred text, as scripture to bring formation and not, in the first place, information, helped me understand that each gospel writer had his message, inspired as it was, to present. Even in the way he ordered his stories served to form us! I loved this idea and by my senior year was really taken with synoptic studies. Form criticism (or as I like to say, formsgeschichte, mainly because it is fun to say) took its place as a powerful way to introduce to me the spiritual message of the evangelists.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Some more random thoughts on Spiritual Reading
Within my ministerial group we have an ongoing debate as to the importance of reading scripture durring a service. The Revised Common Lectionary provides four texts each Sunday. My friend Cliff, an ELCA pastor, is famous for calling us to read all four texts each Sunday.
"Faith comes by hearing," he reminds us, "and God's word will not return void."
Mulholland suggests inspiration has two sides, God breathing the Word to the authors and breathing it again to us a we hear it. The second part requires our attention. Like Joe suggests we must approach it with appropriate postures.
For me this often takes the form of unpacking the scripture, telling the story, or, to say it with it's peculiar title, preaching. Still I wrestle with how to help people attend to the scripture and, with the public reading of it, make it more than just informational or worse a time to zone out.
Perhaps ironically, it was learning to do exegesis that rescued me from informational reading of the scripture. In college I was trying to get through the Bible in a year and I was drying up. My dad sugested that I take the exegetical Bible study methods I had learned and was in love with and really get into the text.
I don't know that I was so much trying to master the text as I was trying to figure out what God was trying to say, and that was terribly formational for me. Exploring what was really intended by the scripture made sure I was hearing the word of God and not the information that reinforced my false self or as Mulholland put it my false word.
It's probably something my dad instilled in me, but I have always sensed the great responsibility to wrestle with the text. If it hasn't my life, how can my sermon change others? It is in the discovery and the journey that I find the ah-ha moment for myself, so I've tried to craft sermons that would bring the audience along the journey in some way. It would be grand if my meager trying would grown into a great wrestling of ancient Olympic proportions - well developed muscles straining...
But then does the Bible have any power apart from our wrestling with it?
If I had lay readers like other churches in the area, I think I'd like to get together with them and talk about the readings so we can get excited about them together.
It seems to me that the acedemic pursuit has well taught me to read informationally, or at least it demands it of me. My approach to a book is different when I have an agenda, and teachers and profs. for the whole of my academic career have seen fit and prudent to impose an agenda on my reading. The call it objectives and due dates and the like. Then they ask me to write a paper of my thoughts justified by the text. So naturally I approach a text, sometimes not even reading (not for this course certainly) just to find a quote or two to back my position. After our study doesn't all this sound repugnant.
The result is I have rarely enjoyed a book I was forced to read. Perhaps the greatest tradgety of my academic career was that I didn't get anything out of Celebration of Discipline the first time I read it as an assignment in class. Fortunately I had some aspiration of building a personal library and didn't sell it back to the book store. I've read it four times since then and what life it has brought!
This isn't the way I approach the novels I read at all. Isn't it ironic that those books that purport to change our lives we read for information and those that merely claim to entertain us can change our lives as we let ourselves be immersed in them. Makes me write the novel version of the Divine Conspiracy.
I keep coming back to the narrative quality of God's revelation to us. I was thinking today as I read Mulholland about the times when I read formationally and when I read for information.
Every night before I go to be I read a good novel to get to bed. I love some Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. Right now I am reading Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. These stories suck me in, I could be reading for hours. I read slowly (much more slowly than my wife) and I feel like I am part of the story for the time I am reading. I am immersed in it, baptized in the authors vision. I often find I am picturing the events from slightly above, as if I were standing on the desk with Robin Williams (like Keating in dead poets society).
I think that is what it is like to read formationally. As we engage our imaginations (I wonder if that is somehow intrinsically linked to our spirits) we make manifest the story in our inward parts.
"Faith comes by hearing," he reminds us, "and God's word will not return void."
Mulholland suggests inspiration has two sides, God breathing the Word to the authors and breathing it again to us a we hear it. The second part requires our attention. Like Joe suggests we must approach it with appropriate postures.
For me this often takes the form of unpacking the scripture, telling the story, or, to say it with it's peculiar title, preaching. Still I wrestle with how to help people attend to the scripture and, with the public reading of it, make it more than just informational or worse a time to zone out.
Perhaps ironically, it was learning to do exegesis that rescued me from informational reading of the scripture. In college I was trying to get through the Bible in a year and I was drying up. My dad sugested that I take the exegetical Bible study methods I had learned and was in love with and really get into the text.
I don't know that I was so much trying to master the text as I was trying to figure out what God was trying to say, and that was terribly formational for me. Exploring what was really intended by the scripture made sure I was hearing the word of God and not the information that reinforced my false self or as Mulholland put it my false word.
It's probably something my dad instilled in me, but I have always sensed the great responsibility to wrestle with the text. If it hasn't my life, how can my sermon change others? It is in the discovery and the journey that I find the ah-ha moment for myself, so I've tried to craft sermons that would bring the audience along the journey in some way. It would be grand if my meager trying would grown into a great wrestling of ancient Olympic proportions - well developed muscles straining...
But then does the Bible have any power apart from our wrestling with it?
If I had lay readers like other churches in the area, I think I'd like to get together with them and talk about the readings so we can get excited about them together.
It seems to me that the acedemic pursuit has well taught me to read informationally, or at least it demands it of me. My approach to a book is different when I have an agenda, and teachers and profs. for the whole of my academic career have seen fit and prudent to impose an agenda on my reading. The call it objectives and due dates and the like. Then they ask me to write a paper of my thoughts justified by the text. So naturally I approach a text, sometimes not even reading (not for this course certainly) just to find a quote or two to back my position. After our study doesn't all this sound repugnant.
The result is I have rarely enjoyed a book I was forced to read. Perhaps the greatest tradgety of my academic career was that I didn't get anything out of Celebration of Discipline the first time I read it as an assignment in class. Fortunately I had some aspiration of building a personal library and didn't sell it back to the book store. I've read it four times since then and what life it has brought!
This isn't the way I approach the novels I read at all. Isn't it ironic that those books that purport to change our lives we read for information and those that merely claim to entertain us can change our lives as we let ourselves be immersed in them. Makes me write the novel version of the Divine Conspiracy.
I keep coming back to the narrative quality of God's revelation to us. I was thinking today as I read Mulholland about the times when I read formationally and when I read for information.
Every night before I go to be I read a good novel to get to bed. I love some Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. Right now I am reading Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. These stories suck me in, I could be reading for hours. I read slowly (much more slowly than my wife) and I feel like I am part of the story for the time I am reading. I am immersed in it, baptized in the authors vision. I often find I am picturing the events from slightly above, as if I were standing on the desk with Robin Williams (like Keating in dead poets society).
I think that is what it is like to read formationally. As we engage our imaginations (I wonder if that is somehow intrinsically linked to our spirits) we make manifest the story in our inward parts.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
moved by the music
Rhapsody in Blue has such emotion and force to it. I thought of how I get caught up in it, and imagine and feel what is going on. (I was drumming my fingers on the coffeetable at the time and actually hurt my middle and ring fingertips badly.) I think perhaps transformational reading catches us away like that. I sometimes find when I'm reading books that have the spiritual force, like Rhapsody has emotional force, I have to stop and get up and walk around. I am so caught up with ideas and energy that my soul cannot be still.
So perhaps formational reading is like this guy: completely amazed at the unforeseeable and unexpected power of this (cute) performance of Rhapsody in Blue.
So perhaps formational reading is like this guy: completely amazed at the unforeseeable and unexpected power of this (cute) performance of Rhapsody in Blue.
Informational or formational reading: A simile
Reading for information is like being impressed by this:
Reading for formation is like your imagination being set on fire like this:
Reading for formation is like your imagination being set on fire like this:Thursday, February 14, 2008
20/20
Dallas Willard gave us the VIM model for change: vision, intention and means. I think the New Testament’s greatest contribution to our spirituality is in giving us vision. From Jesus we hear about what it is to live the in the Kingdom. The epistles flesh out how to live this life. The various apocalyptic visions give us our blessed and most beautiful hope for the future.
If the Old Testament gives us examples of our struggle with God and his struggle with us, if it shows us the wonder and the demands of the covenant relationship, the New Testament shows us how to live a new transformed life now that Jesus has made the covenant relationship complete. We are faced with the sermon on the mount’s lofty ideals, and the way of love demonstrated by God by giving his Son while we were yet sinners. We hear the command to love and take on the life of Love itself. We are given the promise of marriage and await with bated breath its consummation.
If the Old Testament gives us examples of our struggle with God and his struggle with us, if it shows us the wonder and the demands of the covenant relationship, the New Testament shows us how to live a new transformed life now that Jesus has made the covenant relationship complete. We are faced with the sermon on the mount’s lofty ideals, and the way of love demonstrated by God by giving his Son while we were yet sinners. We hear the command to love and take on the life of Love itself. We are given the promise of marriage and await with bated breath its consummation.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Lebensgeschichte
I would argue that the most significant aspect of Old Testament spirituality is the example of lives struggling with God. “So, says Seerveld, ‘The Holy Scriptures invite us treacherous, deceitful people to take hold of God and pull for blessing. When we finally give up our self-sufficient pride then the Angel of the Lord, whom we know as Jesus Christ, will hold us tight in an embrace of love from which nothing can separate us” (Stevens 61).In their example we see not only their closeness to God, but their weaknesses that make them utterly dependent upon him. We see their struggles and that is where they are models. No character outside of Christ is so fully formed that we could model our lives safely after them. So we don’t live the life of a Sarah, or an Abraham. We don’t take our neighbors’ spouses or kill our rivals, but we do imitate David as he wrestles with his friend, God.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Play the Sunset
In Mr. Holland's Opus, Mr. Holland inspires a student to go deeper than the notes on the page to the true joy of the music by telling her to "play the sunset."
The epic story of God with his miracles and activity in our history is beautiful. Here we are with our lives - our stories woven into the tapestry.
Like a sunset, the glory of God is shining. The living Jesus is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his being. It is as we get past the notes on the page and play his glory that our lives take on the joy and fun of a life hidden in Christ.
Mr. Hollands Opus also reminds me of a score by Steve Reich. He wrote minimalist music. In the late 70's he wrote "Music For 18 Musicians." It is simple in its concept - building patterns note by note, but it becomes incredibly complex. The different musicians take up the strains at different times. There is no conductor and as a body they undulate and repeat passages as they desire. The piece can last an hour or more. Students at Grand Valley University recently recorded it and I heard an interview with them on NPR's Weekend edition. The pianist called it a spiritual experience - to play and listen to every one playing around you and be immersed in the music for so long. Their experience reminded me of our own experiences in California with Taize and the rest. Our harmonies, counter points and dissonance is woven into a beautiful song in God's glory. As we get behind the notes into the boundless life of God, the real break through happens, just as it did for the New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley.
Their director Bill Ryan said in the interview, "We had been looking at the work for about six weeks, and there were moments in the rehearsal where I started to see the players come out of their own parts — relaxing, looking around, using their ears, listening to parts that were happening across the room. I knew then that our concert would be fine."
The epic story of God with his miracles and activity in our history is beautiful. Here we are with our lives - our stories woven into the tapestry.
Like a sunset, the glory of God is shining. The living Jesus is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his being. It is as we get past the notes on the page and play his glory that our lives take on the joy and fun of a life hidden in Christ.
Mr. Hollands Opus also reminds me of a score by Steve Reich. He wrote minimalist music. In the late 70's he wrote "Music For 18 Musicians." It is simple in its concept - building patterns note by note, but it becomes incredibly complex. The different musicians take up the strains at different times. There is no conductor and as a body they undulate and repeat passages as they desire. The piece can last an hour or more. Students at Grand Valley University recently recorded it and I heard an interview with them on NPR's Weekend edition. The pianist called it a spiritual experience - to play and listen to every one playing around you and be immersed in the music for so long. Their experience reminded me of our own experiences in California with Taize and the rest. Our harmonies, counter points and dissonance is woven into a beautiful song in God's glory. As we get behind the notes into the boundless life of God, the real break through happens, just as it did for the New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley.
Their director Bill Ryan said in the interview, "We had been looking at the work for about six weeks, and there were moments in the rehearsal where I started to see the players come out of their own parts — relaxing, looking around, using their ears, listening to parts that were happening across the room. I knew then that our concert would be fine."
unity through diversity
My friend Kim Butts said,
So often, it seems, as we gather around the word, we find more to divide us than to bind us together. We need to learn a new way. We need to be the body of Christ as we approach the word of Christ. My experiences with my local ministerial have taught me the richness of really coming together around the word, as we do weekly (ah the joys of the revised common lectionary!).
I believe diversity is the key to community. A homogeneous group isn't able to meet on another's needs nor see properly. Like the fable of the blind men inspecting the elephant, God is too big for any of us to grasp so we all the more need on another. The more diverse views of God we get the better we can see him.
"It would be an amazing thing for the body of Christ to intentionally draw together in unity around His word so that we can experience and obey Jesus in all His fullness."
So often, it seems, as we gather around the word, we find more to divide us than to bind us together. We need to learn a new way. We need to be the body of Christ as we approach the word of Christ. My experiences with my local ministerial have taught me the richness of really coming together around the word, as we do weekly (ah the joys of the revised common lectionary!).
I believe diversity is the key to community. A homogeneous group isn't able to meet on another's needs nor see properly. Like the fable of the blind men inspecting the elephant, God is too big for any of us to grasp so we all the more need on another. The more diverse views of God we get the better we can see him.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Living Word
I am stuck by how powerfully the reality of the living Christ is to our Spiritual Formation. Paul says, “if the Lord be not risen then we are of all men most miserable.” How true. He is the very word of God. He is embodied in our scriptures just as he was for a few decades in flesh. Now he lives on both in glorified body and transforming Spirit.
Johnson points out that the church while the body of Christ is not the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3 NIV). “The mystical body of the church is less a container than a sign that points beyond itself to the life it so inadequately expresses” (Johnson 39). Can you imagine a church so fully transformed that we actually reflect the glory of God. I am reminded of Colossians 3:3-4 “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (NIV). Some great reason to touch finger to flame! Eh?
Johnson points out that the church while the body of Christ is not the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3 NIV). “The mystical body of the church is less a container than a sign that points beyond itself to the life it so inadequately expresses” (Johnson 39). Can you imagine a church so fully transformed that we actually reflect the glory of God. I am reminded of Colossians 3:3-4 “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (NIV). Some great reason to touch finger to flame! Eh?
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