"The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better." - Richard Rohr. For quite awhile I have held this maxim and held it in high regard. It makes so much sense especially in a world where there is so much open ridicule towards those that we disagree with. I sensed that this sage-like response to others' critique and my desire to critique was the best response, especially in the midst of a conflict. But then I became a T.A. in an Old Testament class.
The professor I was working with held a fascinating conviction about how the Old Testament should be taught. He held that the best approach for students being introduced to the Old Testament was for them to know the seamless story of the Old Testament, front to back and to realize that God is the main character, the hero and the author. In this trajectory, there was placed a continual response by God to the lives of the Israelites when they would forsake him, ignore him or outright disobey him.
Many times we believe that the God of the Old Testament was a harsh God of retribution and resolve or that grace isn't the same in the Old Testament as it is in the New. Whatever our impression of this God, he does seem harsh and exacting with his punishment. Yet, the first self-description God gives of himself in the Old Testament found in Exodus 34:6-7 seems to demonstrate otherwise,
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
This description begins with characteristics of compassion and grace and then moves to his forbearance and then finishes with the extent and breadth of his love and fidelity and his desire to forgive all that is done wrong.
Then he shifts to his promise of justice, a justice that includes punishment if it's necessary. He also includes the extent of how certain decisions can incur long term damage into the future, a future impact that will be meted out to generations of descendants. We don't have time to unpack this right now but it is a significant description of God's character that he backs up throughout the Old Testament.
The professor kept relaying this cycle over and over again as we moved through the different narratives that comprise the grand narrative of the Old Testament. Again and again, God demonstrated his unrelenting capacity for long-suffering and patience with his people. He demonstrated over and over again, the keen nature of God's desire to create a community of people that would be a model to the world of what it means to be truly human, a society where the dignity of humanity was valued not only by other humans but primarily and firstly by their God. We talked of the sin, rebellion and betrayal of Israel towards their God and how certain passages of Scripture demonstrate how bad things really got as their main point. But my favorite part was that we always finished with hope. Hope that restoration is the last word - is the best part of this story for us. Hope is the best part of the story. A story without restoration is not a story, it is a horror and is felt all too often by people who desperately need hope.
So I changed my maxim around. Instead of just reading, "The best critique of the bad, is the practice of the better" I added a few more practices.
The best critique of the bad...
1. is the the practice of the better. This is the part where Israel is transformed by God in order to be a light to the Gentiles to attract them passively to the God of forbearance and justice. They were to be a living allegory of the beauty and order of who God is in a world of chaos and distortion. This would not only attract the world to them and their God but would also critique the world's values inherently and passively.
2. is the practice of forbearance and long-suffering. This is God's choice to overlook what could be justly dealt with as soon as it happens. Yet he sees fit to wait for long periods of time while others would deliver exacting judgement and do so in a timely manner so as to capitalize on the crime's time frame. But for God, this is not necessary and instead he promises to give us time to sin, to rebel, to disobey and distort. Why? I can only imagine that it is his effort to make room for us to choose a different direction on our own without having to face necessary punishment. I'm sure there are other reasons, but that one is the most hopeful.
3. is the practice of the challenge to do better. Though we don't always appreciate it, many times a good friend, an authority figure or a "trusted" enemy has provided the very words of challenge and rebuke that we needed to hear but were unwilling to tell ourselves. In Israel this was done most formidably by the prophet but also by the king, the priest, a patriarch or a judge. These were all from within Israel. At other times this voice came from outside Israel in the form of an invading nation, a rotten alliance with Egypt, a faithful Gentile praised by God or at times from errant sources like the false-prophet Balaam and even worse, from the donkey that was to deliver him to make his false proclamation. Many times these words sting and hurt and at other times they surprise, as if we didn't know were were heading down the wrong road. Later we recognize that we needed to hear the challenge to stop, change course and to realize the ugly implications of our decisions. We are informed by this severe mercy, that if we continue in our path, we will not only hurt others irreversibly but also ourselves. These voices are necessary and in many instances, the last straw before we have to face the music ourselves. If we don't heed them, we do end up hearing the "music" but if we do listen, we have responded to a last ditch effort from a source, regardless of whether they are in or out of the camp, to save us from our own demise.
4. is the practice of discipline and justice. We all want justice, but rarely do we want it for ourselves. This is the practice that is least fun but is usually necessary, although it means that we have not responded to the first three practices. Many times we receive discipline in good ways and from trusted sources but at other times we receive it from people that can't or shouldn't be trusted. Either way, God can still redeem poor discipline to instruct us nonetheless. At other times discipline is meted out by authorities that don't need to discipline or they don't need to do so as harshly as they have. If they have not processed the first three practices before they jump to the fourth practice of discipline, then they have usually made a rash decision that will not deliver favorable results, the kind of results that true discipline is designed to produce. For those who need to discipline, we can only administer this practice if it's necessary and only if we are able to. Many try to discipline without the proper authority to do so and incur deep wounds on others and lose respect for themselves. This is the most volatile and most misunderstood and misapplied aspect of "critiquing the bad." It is many times the first resort rather than last and in effect, it reverses and distorts this process.
5. is the practice of restoration. This is hope, this is life and it is where God likes to hang out. On the road from Seoul, South Korea to its century old border with North Korea, there is a massive multi-lane highway that leads to a complete dead-end - the DMZ (demilitarized zone). As I traveled to the DMZ on this highway of hope, I couldn't help but wonder what some of my Korean counterparts were thinking. In a country that prizes itself on efficiency and doing so much with so little, why would they construct a massive highway that lead to a dead end. The answer is simple - hope. They long as many do, through painful memories and tears, to see their country restored as one and so they build highways with dead-ends. The final critique of the bad is this practice of always designing a path, a road or a highway back to yourself. Whenever we've been wronged or treated unjustly, God compels us to always design a path back to restoration, even if the all the odds are against that path every being used. This doesn't mean that we don't employ protocol, respect ourselves or dismiss healthy boundaries, but it does mean that we are asked by God to always have that path ready for able use and access. Many of those paths are never taken advantage of, but in the end, the point is more to keep those paths available even if they are never going to be used. Forgiveness is the posture of restoration and restoration is the potential of forgiveness, but so is rejection.
In the end, none of the practices guarantee a fruitful outcome, but they do guarantee that your heart will be like David's, a heart after God. So whether you practice forbearance, a challenge, restoration, discipline or just the plain reality of doing something better, remember the way God did this over and over again with Israel. Notice what comes first and what needs to come last. If we reverse the process we only participate in the other person's demise and if we expect the reverse we participate in our own. This being true, we can always lean on the long arm of God's law because his law is love and we will never be out of reach of that love.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Journal Entry: I wonder how many of them are like me?
April 9th, 2011
This past week has been really unsettling for me. I have love every moment of it because I have been working with the students in our O.T. class on their exegetical paper for the class. They have to pick a passage and then write a 10-14 page exegetical paper on it. As they have searched out different passages, I have had numerous interactions with them about their topic, how to write the paper, how to research and what research tools to use. It has been a very rewarding experience.
As a result, I have encountered different types of students who are engaging the process on different levels with different degrees of intensity and intention. It has been incredible to see some of them do so well with their work and disappointing to see others slack while others struggle through the project, causing me to experience frustration alongside them. I have been reminded of my first two years of college and how I interacted with the material and professors. I was not a good student by any means but I believe that a lot of that came from the fact that I wasn't ready or mature enough to engage the work and to do so with the sophistication that I needed. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was young, like girls and felt like I was in summer camp year round. It has to be true that I received a lot of grace during those two years and you can be sure that I am thankful for it.
After my sophomore year, I went home for two years and had a chance to start a youth ministry that ended up being very successful, though I would define success differently today. Nonetheless, many of the youth came to Christ with their hearts while some were moved closer. It was a great period of growth as well - a time that I needed in order to mature.
After returning to school in my junior year I began to experience a hunger for learning and a capacity for it that I had never experienced before. It was amazing to see what kinds of things I could do that I had never had the love for recently. As a freshman, much of my success in classes was attributed to fear - fear of failure, of what my professor would think of me, of how other students would perceive me and of what my family would think of me - but most importantly, I worried what God would think of me. After awhile, I lost that fear and it became unnecessary and unfulfilling. Ultimately, I couldn't be motivated by it anymore and was losing a grip on my schooling. I actually became very motivated to do work for money and had started my own business while working for another company. I was making decent money and was very motivated in that work. This is when I left and I'm thankful that I did, because I don't know if I would have done that well in college after that - but who knows.
Half way through my first semester back at school, I began to be incredibly motivated to learn, read and interact like I had never done before. It was like a switch had turned on inside of me. I don't know what happened but I knew that I was hungry and had a capacity for learning that was never there before and it was fun. I dove into a Church History major, coming just short of threatening the registrar who almost didn't let me switch majors. I couldn't get enough of what I was learning - I loved it. I graduated and immediately went to grad school because I wasn't done. When asked about why I was going to grad school - that was literally my answer - I can't stop because I'm not done. I wasn't done having fun. I loved my first semester there as well and I realized how much I loved being in school. Now - 7 years later and a month away from graduation, I'm still enjoying the learning process immensely and still don't want to stop.
When I look at the students I'm working with and think about what they are going through, I wonder sometimes which of them were like me. How many of them really do love learning but just haven't found out yet? How many of them will be great students and scholars but are sitting in their seats cruising facebook because they're bored with class, with life or just motivated to do something else and motivated by something else that they are actually really good at? How many of them are still struggling with fear as their primary motivation, and while I praise them for their great work, they're dying inside because they can't find a safe place to fail. I wonder when they will find God and his favor. I mean really discover it - the kind of favor that one experiences once the fear gives way, and though it seems to leave them hopeless and unmotivated, they have really been set free.
I wonder how many of them are like me?
This past week has been really unsettling for me. I have love every moment of it because I have been working with the students in our O.T. class on their exegetical paper for the class. They have to pick a passage and then write a 10-14 page exegetical paper on it. As they have searched out different passages, I have had numerous interactions with them about their topic, how to write the paper, how to research and what research tools to use. It has been a very rewarding experience.
As a result, I have encountered different types of students who are engaging the process on different levels with different degrees of intensity and intention. It has been incredible to see some of them do so well with their work and disappointing to see others slack while others struggle through the project, causing me to experience frustration alongside them. I have been reminded of my first two years of college and how I interacted with the material and professors. I was not a good student by any means but I believe that a lot of that came from the fact that I wasn't ready or mature enough to engage the work and to do so with the sophistication that I needed. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was young, like girls and felt like I was in summer camp year round. It has to be true that I received a lot of grace during those two years and you can be sure that I am thankful for it.
After my sophomore year, I went home for two years and had a chance to start a youth ministry that ended up being very successful, though I would define success differently today. Nonetheless, many of the youth came to Christ with their hearts while some were moved closer. It was a great period of growth as well - a time that I needed in order to mature.
After returning to school in my junior year I began to experience a hunger for learning and a capacity for it that I had never experienced before. It was amazing to see what kinds of things I could do that I had never had the love for recently. As a freshman, much of my success in classes was attributed to fear - fear of failure, of what my professor would think of me, of how other students would perceive me and of what my family would think of me - but most importantly, I worried what God would think of me. After awhile, I lost that fear and it became unnecessary and unfulfilling. Ultimately, I couldn't be motivated by it anymore and was losing a grip on my schooling. I actually became very motivated to do work for money and had started my own business while working for another company. I was making decent money and was very motivated in that work. This is when I left and I'm thankful that I did, because I don't know if I would have done that well in college after that - but who knows.
Half way through my first semester back at school, I began to be incredibly motivated to learn, read and interact like I had never done before. It was like a switch had turned on inside of me. I don't know what happened but I knew that I was hungry and had a capacity for learning that was never there before and it was fun. I dove into a Church History major, coming just short of threatening the registrar who almost didn't let me switch majors. I couldn't get enough of what I was learning - I loved it. I graduated and immediately went to grad school because I wasn't done. When asked about why I was going to grad school - that was literally my answer - I can't stop because I'm not done. I wasn't done having fun. I loved my first semester there as well and I realized how much I loved being in school. Now - 7 years later and a month away from graduation, I'm still enjoying the learning process immensely and still don't want to stop.
When I look at the students I'm working with and think about what they are going through, I wonder sometimes which of them were like me. How many of them really do love learning but just haven't found out yet? How many of them will be great students and scholars but are sitting in their seats cruising facebook because they're bored with class, with life or just motivated to do something else and motivated by something else that they are actually really good at? How many of them are still struggling with fear as their primary motivation, and while I praise them for their great work, they're dying inside because they can't find a safe place to fail. I wonder when they will find God and his favor. I mean really discover it - the kind of favor that one experiences once the fear gives way, and though it seems to leave them hopeless and unmotivated, they have really been set free.
I wonder how many of them are like me?
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