There are many pendulums swinging at the same time. Some swing farther than others and take much longer to return from their climb. Some are louder than others and make more noise. History is the swing of the pendulum and the spiral of the conundrum and it’s not written by he who has the most toys. It is a complex ongoing system of swinging and spiraling upward, backward, forward and downward. This process looks more like the movements within a matrix and spectrums of light dancing on the walls from a crystal hung in the window.
Life moves forward but much like change it can move two steps forward but one step back, three steps forward then four steps back, then 3 steps forward and 1 step back – but it is always continuously moving forward like a sanctification scale. There are many pendulum swings and the emergent Church corrective is one long overdue underduck that’s been swinging one direction for too long. Some have tried (Rauschenbusch, Gutierrez and others) to bring it back the other way, but they got over hauled and over stepped and maybe stepped on in their day. Maybe now their corrective efforts can be attained but still within the vision of Jesus Christ having lordship in the external and internal world, on the noumenal and the phenomenal planes of reality, in the hearts of humanity as well as in their lives, relationships, social contexts, ethnicities, languages and everywhere that God has planned for redemption to reach.
So pick a pendulum or two and swing, maybe subversively, maybe subserviently, maybe as a sage, maybe submissively and maybe all of them or none at all but maybe in your own way.
Only remember to listen, learn, laugh a lot and discern. Enjoy the highs and lows, but be committed to Christ at every level and in every conversation know that you carry a shovel.
Commit yourself to Christ more than you are committed to your ideals, your community, your tradition, your theology, your context and condition, even to your holy Writ which is really your interpretation of it, and let the ride take you higher than you’ve gone before with people you’ve never ridden with, people who may not share your core and as the pendulum swings as in the days of yore, consider the lilies and that one day you’ll see clearly what’s been in store - in the place and time where we won’t strive, cry or toil anymore. These pendulums will be history when we finally reach that Pilgrim shore so remember not to forget that we are not masters of the swing – the pendulum is not our chore.
God in His sovereignty is the same today as He was yesterday – the pendulum doesn’t move Zion’s mountain or lock the Temple door. So please, will you lay down your quill, come shake my hand, and with an Overdue Underduck, we'll swing into forevermore.
Written by Nathan Smith (kind of)
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