Monday, March 27, 2006

Reflections on Translation

The final chapter in Eugene Petersen's Eat this Book is about translation. He makes the case the Bible was, for the most part, written in the language of the everyday Joe. Our task, as those called to proclaim the Good News, is once again to speak the language of the everyday Joe — in effect to translate from the everyday language of one place and time to the everyday language of another.

I heard similar comments about the role of leadership in Mark Strom's summer school class that I'm currently listening to on my morning walk.

Ironically, our Focus 3 group just received two more books to read on leadership and leadership related things. Both are "christianized" versions of secular writings — books translated from the specialized language of business into the specialized language of church and christianity. A bit of further reflection revealed that there is a huge industry engaged in just such translation — producing everything from leadership books to finance advice to novels in the unique christian dialect we need to be able to understand these things.

If Petersen and Strom are right about our task, you'd think there would be no need or market for such translated books — instead christians would be choosing to read in the language of the "outside" world specifically to learn that language and be better translaters of the Good News.

Curious. And, I think, sad.

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Balaam's ass

This past weekend at our denominational meetings, reference was made on more than one occasion to God speaking through Balaam's ass. For myself, I've tended to think of this story as a one time, special event, never to be repeated. I've probably been most likely to subscribe to the maxim "Just because God can speak through a donkey doesn't give an excuse to make an ass of one's self."

For whatever reason, I found myself struck by a number of incongruities during the singing sessions. I was struck how the insertion of some funky musical bridges into the accompaniment to some of the hymns simply ripped the text apart, rendering chunks of it almost meaningless. I was struck how the emotional content of the lyrics of some songs was completely at odds with the emotional content of the music. I was struck by some the bizarre theology that arose from taking some the lyrics seriously.

But most of all, I was struck by the incongruity of the inescapable observation that I was surrounded by people who were clearly sensing the presence and blessing of God in and through the singing of these songs — as thoroughly confused and theologically questionable as they were.

Ultimately, the only real conclusion is that God speaking through Balaam's ass was not just a one time, historical event — rather, God continues to speak through Balaam's ass today on a regular basis. So in the end, the incongruities of the music left me pondering not the incompetence of our denomination's musicians, but the amazing greatness and omnicompetence of God, who refuses to leave Himself without a witness even among the worst of our inanities and foolishness.

Which means there is hope for me yet.

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Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Boy can I relate

Alan Creech says:

I think lots of things

But I don't always know what to write. I've thought about writing a book before, but then I think, "what the hell am I going to fill like 150 pages with?" or however many pages a book is supposed to be. Intimidating. Blogs are like that sometimes too. That last post staring you in the face over and over again. It's calling out to you, "I don't want to be up here at the top any more! Write something else!!" Aaggghh! So I write stuff like this, pretty funny.

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Saturday, March 18, 2006

Emerging Worship is about Who Gets to Play

Ryan Bolger starts a recent post with the above title this way:

I remarked recently that I had attended a near lifeless traditional church. More recently, I attended a traditional service that was filled with life. What was the difference? It really came down to who got to play and who didn't.

For me, this issue of who gets to play, and when and where they get to play, has been a huge part of the re-shaping of my own understanding of worship. The other issue is whether we worship God together as one people, or simply come together to stand alone before God.

In a recent listening to a Regent summer school course by Valentine Cunningham entitled The Making of the Protestant Mind, the idea of man as an individual alone before God was developed as part of the emerging Protestant ethos immediately following the Reformation and during the growth of the Enlightenment era. In reflection, I could see just how ubiquitous that idea was in my spiritual environment and just how much that idea had shaped (or mis-shaped) my own personal and spiritual development. Perhaps that is why I find the liturgical emphasis of worshipping together as one people so refreshing and full of life.

One of the things I'm still reflecting on and trying to come to grips with, though, is the obvious value my current community places on having a space where you don't have to play — where you can come as you are and not be required to do anything or be anything that you are not, or that you may think you are not. That characteristic has been an important initial aspect in the spiritual path of many of our people, and is understandably deeply appreciated and highly treasured. And I certainly want to honour that.

And yet, I'm seeing that there is a very fine line between having a space in which you don't have to play and having a space in which only the elites get to play — and many of the ways of doing things that support the former contribute to the latter. In the long haul, though, I'm afraid that regardless of whether the format of worship is liturgical or freeform, traditional or contemporary, seeker oriented or believer oriented, worship in which only the elites get to play is going to have a strong tendency toward becoming lifeless. Which, of course, means that it will no longer truly be worship of the very living God.

Does the brokenness of our current world mean that true acceptance and true community in worship is something we can only long for in the age to come? Or is there a way that we can create a space that is truly welcoming to those for whom church and religion had been abandoned as being both lifeless and oppressive — and who therefore resist anything that smacks of ritual or requirement — while still allowing for, and indeed encouraging, a true coming together as one people in our worship of God, worship in which the all the people get to play?

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Who are the Righteous?

A few weeks ago I was listening to Darrell Johnson's summer school class entitled Praying by the Book. In the discussion on Psalm 37, a student questioned how to understand verse 25 as true. Here David says "I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his children begging bread".

As much as various versions of a prosperity gospel are prevalent today, we know, if we are awake and alert, that the world contains many faithful Christians who are desparately poor. Does this verse promise prosperity to the righteous, or has David simply lived a sheltered life away from seeing poverty among the faithful?

For me, however, I was struck by the following verse where David describes the righteous in these words: "he is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing." Perhaps David sees something that we do not. Perhaps David understands the righteous person not so much in terms of the person whose religious practice is impeccable or the person whose behaviour conforms to all the rules of the law (whether secular or sacred), but rather in terms of the person who indeed gives generously to those around him, particularly to those in need.

It struck me that probably the reason many of us do not give generously out of whatever we have, great or small, is that we are afraid that if we give generously we will not have enough, that our children will end up without. Our fear of being forsaken keeps us from being the generous person that David calls righteous. Knowing this, David says that in reality this is a false fear. David has seen that the person whose characteristic behaviour is to give generously is not forsaken, even if financial reversals happen. The man who has shared openly with his poor neighbours so that their children do not have to beg bread will not see his own children begging, no matter how serious the financial situation may get.

Generosity begets generosity. Righteousness begets righteousness. This is what David sees that we often do not.

God seems to be bringing this theme up over and over lately. It came up at Breakforth in the sessions I had with Joyce Heron of Jacob's Well. And it comes up again in a recent Christianity Today online article, Community In, Not Of, Capitalism, an excerpt from David Fitch's book, The Great Giveaway. This sentence in particular caught my eye and forced me to pay attention: "We live in fear that to give up our possessions will leave us alone and destitute when our time of need comes."

Building up substantial resources does not make one immune from these fears — something I discovered within myself recently during a mini cash-flow crunch; even though the process of completing our income tax returns and consolidating investments with a single financial advisor makes it fairly obvious that those fears were very much out of proportion to reality.

But I wonder if God is trying to tell me that even deeper behaviourial patterns are rooted in a twisted view of reality — that if I really saw clearly the depths of riches that are mine in Christ Jesus I would have a much different attitude toward my material wealth, and live much more generously as a result.

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