August 2007 Archives

Do you have an anamchara, the Celtic word for "soul friend" or "spiritual director"? Tracy Balzer's second chapter, in Thin Places, is a delicate and insightful survey of the Celtic practice and how spiritual direction or soul friendship can be developed in our world.

Here are our questions: Do you have any experience with spiritual direction? Either as the director or the one receiving direction? Experience with spiritual friendships or soul friends?

St. Camgall of Bangor, a 7th Century saint, said "it is not good to be your own guide." Many of us are. Do we need to rethink our independence, our rugged individualism, and consider having an anamchara? St. Brigid, a 6th Century saint, said "a person without a soul friend is like a body without a head."

A soul friend provides sanctuary -- a safe place to reveal, to ponder, and to learn -- and confession -- so that the words may be heard in an audible way making us more aware of our sins and accountability.

We lack safe places today and we grow restless in spirit -- we are afraid to voice our honest questions because of fear of condemnation. An anamchara can help.

Tracy tells the story of a friend who spoke to her students about the "power of the secret" (life) and the need to "break the secret."

The anamchara asks questions and listens well. In essence, the anamchara enables a person to hear from God, listen to God, and to walk the life of faith better.

It is not good to be your own guide... that statement, at the close of the chapter, was for me the best thing said.

I will be participating in a panel discussion called "Questioning the Answers: the emerging church critique of evangelicalism" on Thursday, Sept. 20th at 7pm in the northwest suburbs. It's hosted by up/rooted, the Chicago area emerging cohort.

Here is the announcement sent out by Jon Bernbaum at up/rooted north.

The panel discussion will be on the emerging church's critiques of evangelicalism, and consideration of the way forward. The panelists are Scot McKnight, professor at North Park University and prodigious blogger and author; Wayne Johnson, professor and director of the MDiv program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and former dean of students; and Dave Fitch, professor at Northern Baptist Seminary, pastor at Life on the Vine, and slightly less prodigious blogger and author.

Each of us will critique a particular response of the emerging church to evangelicalism (think issues of authority, church structure, worship, preaching, role of Scripture, etc.) and we'll get a chance to engage in open discussion with everyone on these crucial issues.
Come out and join us as we gather together around the emerging conversation on Thursday evening, September 20th at 7pm at Life on the Vine in Long Grove, IL.

When I was a kid we sang about Zacchaeus, who was for us the arch-type of a "wee little man." Zacchaeus, as seen in Luke 19:1-10, was a short guy but that's not the point. Missional Jesus makes that clear:

The Zacchaeus story is about the kingdom of God and the Jesus Creed.

1. Missional Jesus knows that Zacchaeus had ripped people off.
2. Missional Jesus enters into this Gentile, impure man's home.
3. Missional Jesus summons him to repentance.
4. Missional repentance is a repentance that creates a new society of economic virtue, fairness, honesty, and compassion.
5.Missional repentance backs up and undoes wrongs because it is shaped for a life that lives out the Jesus Creed.
6. Missional Jesus was for the poor, but he was also for the rich -- they, too, were summoned into this new community that was unlike the System.

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore‑fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

The end of the summer means the arrival of crickets and their endless chirping. So my question: How do I get them out of my basement so I can study in peace?

On the first day of my Jesus of Nazareth class I ask students to complete a "test" that explores how our self-perception influences our perception of Jesus. (The test: NEICE Images of Jesus (PDF)), but for some odd reason the pages are in reverse order.) The test demonstrates that we all tend to make Jesus in our own image. This idea seems to get the attention of most students, which leads me to a few more thoughts.

Here's my question for the day: What is the most shattering thing you learned about Jesus in the Gospels that altered what you previously thought about Jesus?

First, I trot out seven "kinds of Jesuses" that we can find at the local bookstore. The traditional Jesus who was divine, the eschatological Jesus of Schweitzer who expected the end of history imminently, the social Jesus whose vision was a transformation of the social order, the political Jesus whose vision concerned the powers in Jerusalem, the liberal Jesus who exhibited the ultimate ethic of love, the religious Jesus who lived a life of communion with God, and the cultural-critic Jesus whose vision got to the core of the culture of Galilee and Judea.

Second, I suggest we need to challenge the view of Jesus that we bring to the text of the Gospels by reading the Gospels in several ways:

1. Historically -- by asking how Jesus fit into his Jewish world.
2. Thematically -- by examining specific themes in the Gospels from beginning to end.
3. Individually -- by asking how Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John each present Jesus.
4. Comparatively -- by comparing both major ideas in each Gospel and specific parallels between the Gospels.
5. Literarily -- by reading each Gospel as a work of literature and art and rhetoric.

NEICE Images of Jesus (PDF)