something to think about...

for those of you who didn’t know, elizabeth and i have been helping out with a youth group at a local church here in pittsburgh. at youth last night, i realized something (or maybe confirmed something that i had been thinking about for some time). the lesson for the evening was “what does it mean to respond to god’s love?”. one would think that we christians would have some pretty good answers to this question, but we really don’t, do we? when asked this question, we stumble and fumble and give Sunday school answers like “love your neighbor as yourself”. i have heard enough conversations of this subject to be very disheartened because when it comes down to it we don’t really know what that means. and if we don’t know what it means, it certainly doesn’t play out in our lives. this leads me to two conclusions:

1. we are scripturally illiterate. we very simply don’t know scripture, which makes it sort of hard to know how to live our lives. i admit that this includes me even though i am in seminary. i don’t know when the church became so apathetic to scripture, but the church has certainly failed at educating kids and new christians in scripture, the disciplines, and tradition. i have a feeling that very few “christians” read their bibles (there is actually evidence of this – something like 93% of americans own bibles and only 30% can name the four gospels), and the ones who do read their bibles probably a) don’t really understand what they are reading and don’t bother to try to figure it out using some sort of reputable resource (scripture was written in a different time and place than we are familiar with. if we think we can just read scripture as if it was written for us today we are sadly mistaken.). b) fail to actually apply the scripture to their lives (as the parable of the sower in matthew 13 warns) or c) get to a point where they think they have read scripture enough that they don’t need to read it anymore (this is a sad day because we are denying the holy spirit the power to breath new life into the text for us. is there really ever a point where we know scripture so well that we don't need to read it anymore?). i would like to think that i am being pessimistic here, but i fear that this is more the rule than the exception.

2. all of this, I think, is just a symptom of a much larger problem, though. this is the problem of what I am going to call the uncritical life. i have noticed that almost all of us fail to think critically about our lives much of the time. i have been reading thoreau, who thought very critically of his own life and of the time in which he lived and who has challenged many people to think critically for many years. he writes, “one farmer says to me, ‘you cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.” now, i know that this isn’t necessarily where thoreau is going with this (and neither is the point that we should be vegetarians), but we somehow just meander through life living by the example of the others around us or before us or heeding others advice without ever really asking ourselves if this is the correct way to live. you may like to think that not all of us were cut out to think deeply about life. only people like thoreau can do it because they have the time. our busy lives certainly don’t allow for hours of contemplation. is this really the truth, though? do we really think that we can live well without constant thought? is action more important than thought and should it, thus, precede thought?

it isn’t even necessarily that we don’t ever ask ourselves deep questions, but we are scared to really think about them and answer them. we know in the back of our minds that answering these questions would lead to drastically different lifestyles that we very simply refuse to accept. going back to the love question, do we really think about how our actions affect others? do we ever think about how the things we say, do, and consume even on the most minute level might really adversely affect others, and how this isn’t really congruent with love?

i must admit that i recognize the power of sin more than ever since i have been in seminary and recognize the enormity of trying to constantly be aware of how my actions might not be loving, but do we really think that when we stand before god we can legitimately claim ignorance because we didn’t bother to stop and think once in a while? god didn’t give us a brain for nothing. in fact, i think we play right into satan's trap when we don't think about our lives. the last thing he wants us to do is try to understand scripture and apply it to our life. the last thing he wants us to do is think about love at every decision of our life. so, do we really have tangible answers that work out in our daily lives to the challenges of the bible? do we know what it really means to love god and our neighbors? have we resided to saying, “well, at least i live better than joe blow down the street”? did christ really come to show us the perfect example so we could compare our actions with those that live worse than we do? if we don’t know scripture and think critically, how will we ever begin to grasp the beauty of the gospel – that we can stop flailing stupidly and thoughtlessly around, trying desperately to just do enough to satisfy god, and just rest in thoughtful silence in christ?

here's to love, life, and thinking,
jw <><