I
argued in my last ACT 3 Weekly that it was time for Christians to ask:
Why not? It is time to also ask: What
if? As I personally embrace what is the final phase of my
public ministry life the temptation is to accept what has happened as
the expectation for what should or will happen. I am determined to
think and live otherwise. Because I embrace the virtues of faith, hope
and love as the core of my being I ask how living as a mature disciple
can make a real difference in the lives of others, especially those who
come behind me.
Nothing Is Completed in Our Lifetime
Theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote, “Nothing worth doing is completed in our
lifetime. Therefore we must be saved by hope.” The whole Christian life
is one that embraces hope. This stance leans into the future and seeks
to constantly discover how to live between what is and what will be.
Korean theologian Jung Young Lee speaks of people who live “in between”
different worlds. He also speaks of those who live “in both” worlds or
“in neither.” I have known a lot of Christians who settle for one of
these stances, or a combination of several without a great deal of
thought about why or how. Lee calls contemporary Christians to live “in
the beyond.” This is the stance Niebuhr spoke about in the first half
of the last century.
The
radical disciple, disturbed by God, should choose to live “in the
beyond.” By this choice the faithful modern follower of Jesus seeks to
build a bridge between what is (the mundane, modern alternatives to
deep faith) and what ought to be (the reign of Christ demonstrated
relationally in lives empowered by love). This was why I spent the
previous two weeks underscoring the importance of the story told in the
movie The Blind Side. This very real human story
provides a simple, powerful and workable model of what I am talking
about theologically.
Living
on the margins of society, on the edge, is never easy or comfortable.
If you want to follow Jesus and play it safe then what I am calling for
in this series is of no importance to you. You must be willing to take
risks! You must be willing to embrace the unpredictable, the seemingly
impossible. This is where imagination comes to bear on radical
discipleship.
Children and the Kingdom
Jesus
speaks of God’s way by saying that the Father hides kingdom mysteries
from the “wise and intelligent” and “reveals them to infants” (Matthew
11:25). We later read in the same Gospel:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus
and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a
child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you
change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes
me” (Matthew 18:1-5).
And in Matthew 19:13-15 we read:
Then little children were being brought
to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The
disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them, but Jesus said, “Let
the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such
as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on
them and went on his way.
I
have pondered words like these for more than fifty-five years. I
conclude that they are staggering in their implications. Mark, by the
way, says that Jesus “blessed them” (Mark 10:16), demonstrating just
how amazing Jesus’ response really was to infants who could contribute
no money or talent to the kingdom.
Note
that the disciples had no patience with these people bringing little
children to Jesus to be held, touched and blessed. They spoke “sternly”
to those who bothered Jesus with these mundane interruptions. They
thought just like most people think and in the process they were
actually missing the kingdom.
What
is really going on in these various texts about children? Some see here
an embrace of children into the realm, reign and reality of the
kingdom. I think this has to be true. But I see even more. We commonly
think of little children as those who possess an almost limitless
ability for imagination. Children’s literature, drama and response all
demonstrate this point powerfully. I think it is quite likely that
Jesus is openly endorsing the idea of an “upside down kingdom” where
the weakest and smallest are the strongest and the greatest. Why? They
have the imagination to adapt, to be resourceful, and to see life as an
adventure.
The Creative Element
Children
know how to play. They understand creativity without even having to
think about it. Some children have an incredible imagination. They then
get it knocked out of them by their peers, their teachers and their
parents. Generally the more creative the child the more people will
work to challenge this aspect of their development. When this happens
these children grow up to be even more timid and cautious as adults.
They learn that the way to make it in this world is to play it safe, to
not challenge much and to get along. Anthony Gittins is right: “Some
families and communities simply cannot cope with too much imagination”
(A Presence That Disturbs, 49).
Not
everyone is as creative as the next person. But all of us can learn to
embrace new ways of thinking and living if we had the faith to ask the
right questions and to pursue new ways of responding to the challenges
of our lives. All of us cannot live exciting lives and do exciting
things but all of us can develop relationships with people who are
imaginative and creative and embrace a world of great challenge and
opportunity. In this case your life will be impacted profoundly by who
you choose as your friends and role models.
Statistically
it is more likely that we find our imaginations inhibited rather than
stimulated, especially if the number of our friends who are creative is
small. Let me explain this a bit more concretely.
Many
of us, whether we become this way by temperament, by influence or by a
combination of both, lean toward being sensibly conservative. The older
we get the more cautious we become. This seems to be especially true of
Christians are orthodox in their belief and moral practice. (I am among
those who believe and practice the faith in an orthodox way.) But such
orthodox people find risk-taking extremely difficult. The question here
is vital—how do we balance conservatism and wisdom with experimentation
and risk-taking? The task is never easy. To take risks means we must
ask questions, challenge ideas, explore new ways of thinking and
living. But we have been taught, in many cases, that we must take no
risk of error. “Such an attitude produces fearful and stunted adult
human beings—the very opposite of what Jesus was [is] seeking”
(Gittins, 49).
Christian Think Tanks
Most
of you know what a “think tank” is. They are virtual laboratories where
very bright people gather to work on solving serious problems. Such
think tanks seek to solve problems of science, medicine, education,
philosophy and politics. There are even Christian think tanks. But the
average church leadership group is deeply set against the whole idea of
“thinking” with any degree of freedom and imagination. They are opposed
to creativity in problem solving and living.
What
if we fostered an atmosphere where Christians who were imaginative
could actually address particular problems and actually imagine a
different church, a different way of living and a different world? What
if we made disciples who truly imagined people thinking and living very
differently?
When
I came to embrace the idea that I call “missional-ecumenism,” an idea
which is central to the thesis of my forthcoming book,
Your Church Is Too
Small (April, Zondervan), I was fearful about
how people would actually respond to my thesis. I realized that some
would see what I was saying and become excited about it. Others,
perhaps initially a majority among my peers, would respond with all the
reasons why my thesis would/could never work. I faced a crossroads in
my life. I could choose to imagine a better day for the church or stick
with the same-old, same-old. I chose the creative road that I am
writing about in this series on discipleship and pressed on. I wrote, I
prayed and I imagined a response. I began to see this response form in
my mind more powerfully as I moved along. Now my thesis will soon be
put to a literal test. Do I have enough imagination and faith to
envision a new day, a new response, a new paradigm that will actually
work to change the lives of Christian leaders and churches? I do and I
can now tell you that this response was born and developed in a
creative heart that has become more and more childlike over the past
decade. I am persuaded that this is at the heart of what Jesus is
saying about radical discipleship in the Gospels.
