Feeling The Weight of the World

Recently I came across Peter Rollins*  telling a yarn he calls, ‘The Parable of the 2 Camels’. It goes like this…

‘Once there was a merchant who was leading his two camels along a road. One camel was walking slowly because it was weighed down with packs of salt. The other camel moved along much quicker because it was loaded up with bales of cotton’.

‘Now along the way, the merchant came to a place where the road was flooded by a swollen river. As the merchant moved further along the road both he & his camels began being immersed deeper & deeper into the water’.

‘After a few minutes the merchant was swimming & the camels were almost completely submerged. But the merchant persisted. His livelihood depended on it.  Finally the merchant and his camels were back on dry road’.

‘As the merchant made the final trek to the bazaar, he noticed something had changed in the way the camels were carrying their cargo. The camel with the salt on it’s back seemed to have gained new strength & vigor. The merchant puzzled over this for a bit and then realised the water must have mostly dissolved the salt in the packs. However, the camel carrying the cotton was now struggling and groaning under the weight of its load. This was because the cotton had absorbed so much water’.

I like the parable of the two camels. I like it because it makes really clear a holy paradox that exists for people who embrace the Gospel.

I keep finding that whenever I encounter a paradox in Scripture, I need to pay attention because I have arrived at a place of significant spiritual truth. The way forward is not to decide between one possibility or the other but to try to a find way to hold the two in tension. These are places of tremendous spiritual dynamism.

The paradox of embracing the Gospel begins, when like the camel weighed down with the salt, we experience the river of God’s Grace. The mercy of God surrounds us & overwhelms us. We leave the weight and guilt of all our past selfish actions at the foot of the Cross. Our sins are washed away & we emerge on the other side with an incredible lightness of being that floods our very souls. It’s like the old hymn says, ‘My chains fell off, my heart was freed, I rose went forth and I followed Thee’.

This is the grace of the kingdom. This is forgiveness that makes us whiter than snow. This is love expressed as mercy… like being given a 2^nd, a 3^rd and a 4^th chance all at once.

Now the journey of discipleship is one where we keep following in the way of Jesus. So with that incredible lightness of being we enter back into the river – we continue embracing the Gospel with arms wide open. It is at this point that we experience the paradox. We begin to indentify with the experience of the camel who enters into the river with the cotton.

The more that we enter into and embrace the heart of the Gospel, the more we become weighed down with feeling the burden of a hurting world. 

I was talking to someone recently, asking them what their response has been to me talking for nearly 12 months now about mission. This person whose opinion I value said, “I feel exhausted !”

At first I found these words rather confronting. I started feeling a little bit anxious. Then this week as I have been reflecting on ‘The Parable of the 2 Camels’, I have been thinking maybe what my friend has been feeling, is a renewed sense of the weight of the Gospel.

You see, when we feel the weight of the Gospel, at first it can be overwhelming, even exhausting. Yet that burden we feel for a hurting world, that feeling of agitation, in the sense that I must… do… something… that’s not something I can claim credit for. That’s the Holy Spirit working.

This burden that we have for a hurting world, it changes our perception of the world we live in. It makes us see things that before were invisible. It makes us sensitive and aware of the needs of others… It opens us up to life lived beyond ourselves.

It moves us from being passive & selfish into merciful and inclusive action on behalf of others.

So how do you know a person is experiencing the paradox of embracing the Gospel with their arms wide open ?

Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruit”. He says, “Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles ? In the same way good trees bear good fruit… they cannot bear bad fruit”.

*from Peter Rollins’ book… ‘How (Not) To Speak of God’

Perfection = Mercy

The Sermon on the Mount has many demanding teachings. Perhaps the most confronting for me is Jesus’ injunction at the end of his teaching on loving enemies. He says, “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect”. It’s interesting when you look at what Jesus says in his similar teaching in Luke’s gospel, instead of using the word perfect, Jesus says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful”.

Perfection in Matthew equals mercy in Luke’s gospel. Being perfect just like our Father in heaven means being merciful.

So this is love expressed as mercy, generosity, openness, sensitivity & forgiveness… As disciples of Jesus, this our way of being in the world that impacts everything that we do.

He Who Saves One Life, Saves the World Entire

Living life naked and exposed in the presence of God himself. I think this is what Jesus has in mind in his teaching of the Sermon on the Mount… why it is so demanding. We are not merely talking about Jesus giving new order to the parameters of Jewish religious life or even temple worship, but the Spirit of God being granted access and transforming all areas of life. Anything that has God in such close proximity is deeper, wider and higher than ordinary living.

You see when we dwell in close proximity to the Scriptures, when we turn them over again and again, when look back over their writing down through the ages – something becomes very clear. God has priorities. God desires some things more than he desires others…   

Like the time Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector. Jesus is sitting eating a meal openly with a number of tax collectors and other social outcasts. Some Pharisees are walking by and they ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with those kinds of people ?” And Jesus, hearing what they are saying, turns to them and replies, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’”. 

Jesus says this because as a good Jew who had memorised the Torah, word for word – Jesus knows God’s priorities. God desires mercy more than he desires sacrifice. God desires compassion more than he desires contemplation. God desires our hearts more than he desires our intellectual ascent.

Why ? Because the goal of life isn’t purity and holiness – that’s a by-product. The goal of life is an intensity of living, a fullness of life, concretely focused into habits of action that help to repair the brokenness of a hurting world. It’s like the Jewish Talmud says, “He who saves one life, saves the world entire.”

I Desire Mercy Not Sacrifice

Mission as an organising principle… I was listening to Michael Frost talk about this in the last couple of days. He was saying he has a fear of mission becoming a style thing, of it being domesticated when it should be dangerous and costly and totally reorientating. His is a vision of mission as a never-ending, surging fighting movement.  It’s interesting… Jesus says to some rabbis who are critical of his eating with social outcasts, “Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy not sacrifice”. What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?

When mission is the organising principal discipleship is key. The goal is one of maturing to the point of knowing what to do to personally grow and doing it. Disciples are even deliberately pursuing accountable relationships with people further along in the journey.

This is the vision of a church who breaks out of its building and seeps into the cracks and crevices of it’s surrounding community. It is always listening, sometimes participating in the conversations of the community, even starting some of those conversations. In mostly quiet, unassuming ways, whenever it encounters pain and violence and oppression, it offers solidarity and hope and healing.

It is the vision of a church whose edges are permeable, where sensitivity & awareness reaches out from its very middle, to the ends of the earth. 

It is the vision of a church that is deliberately creating spaces for people and experiences beyond itself, allowing them to get close. This affects disciples in costly ways – including the use of their time and financial resources, even relationships. It is a church that engages in ministry enterprises and experiments that are provisional, home grown and have every possibility of failure.

What would happen if we allowed mission to become the focus of our churches instead of worship ?