We have a lot of catching up to do, Beautiful Kingdom Warriors! Once again, it has been a busy summer here in Vacationland. Thank you for being patient and sticking with Becky and me even when our lives are overflowing with non-blog-related activity. Every day, we post great links on our Facebook page, and I have just scrolled through to share my favorites here from July and August. But first, feast your eyes on the scenery around my home in Maine. Then you’ll understand why it’s such a popular destination!
Indispensible: Women Who Plant Churches “It’s hard to imagine a stronger affirmation of women as indispensable church planters than Paul gives the women of Philippi. Church planting efforts multiplied because he broke with tradition to partner with his sisters in Christ. The mission Jesus entrusted to his church is demanding, so demanding that it requires a Blessed Alliance of men and women working together. In this challenging post-Christian world, we are learning afresh of God’s desire for the partnered ministry of women and men in seeing the gospel embodied and advanced through the planting of new churches. We must reclaim the biblical and apostolic conviction of the indispensability of women in church planting!”
~ On how patriarchy hurts men and women ~ How the Christian ‘masculinity’ movement is ruining men
“The Christian Bible paints for us a view of manhood that is much more complex than these simple stereotypes allow. For every biblical reference to warriors like Samson or Saul, we read of characters like young David, a harpist, who through no power of his own defeated a giant. We meet Simeon, known for patiently waiting decades to see God’s promise revealed. Jesus himself notably refused to fight back, even giving up his life and physical body in a history-making display of spiritual strength. A closer reading suggests that the Bible’s heroes aren’t meant to be models of outward toughness but exemplars of inner fortitude. So why have so many Christians accepted secular standards of masculinity as the basis for biblical manhood?”
No, Focus on the Family, I do not want to civilize a barbarian
“I think our problem is a society that encourages men to be violent, not that women should be whatever-definition-Glenn-T.-Stanton-has-for-feminine so they can motivate men out of being a malignant cancer. If appreciating a woman’s opinion is life-changing, let men and boys, single and married, respect women and their opinions in every sphere of society – including in politics, in church, in the home, at work and in social settings.”
Why Donald Trump is Good for Evangelicals
“Kinder-gentler versions of manhood and calls for men to ‘man-up!’ and take charge that thunder from evangelical pulpits and appear in books addressing men merely situate evangelicals on the cultural manhood continuum. Such definitions are woefully inadequate and run the risk that men, like Trump, will take things too far. Worse still, they fail to offer men and boys the indestructible identity, dignity, meaning, and purpose that their Creator intended when he bestowed the imago dei on all his sons and daughters.”
Its Not OK, and We’re Not Alright
“Just because not everyone experiences the fallout of an oppressive system in the same way does not mean that the oppressive system does not exist. When someone reduces all the harm, damage, and trauma of purity culture down to something “weird” or calls our responses “melodramatic,” they are erasing us and dismissing our legitimate grievances. This happens because they have had the privilege of living in an oppressive system and not being significantly harmed by it.”
~ On abuse and protecting your children ~ The Courage Conference – Lynchburg, VA October 28-29
“Did you know that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience abuse in their lifetime, including those in church? And, for the last five years, child sexual abuse has been the number one reason Churches or Religious Organizations have ended up in court. The Church is often the first place victims of abuse go to seek help and healing. If we are not educated and equipped to properly serve these hurting individuals, we can unintentionally neglect or even re-victimize them. This is why we created The Courage Conference.“
Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife – A Review “Reading this book also requires a willingness to reconsider one’s view of marriage. This is no simple task because her story raises questions regarding deeply held beliefs about marriage roles, male headship, and female submission that many evangelical Christians consider sacred and nonnegotiable. Yet the “silent epidemic” of domestic abuse that concerns Tucker is so dangerous and life-threatening within Christian circles, and so easily concealed, we cannot afford to brush her off and refuse to listen.”
5 everyday ways to teach your kids about consent.
1. Ask for their consent often.
2. Teach them that their “no” matters.
3. Model to your child that “yes” can become “no” at any time.
4. Seek to understand.
5. Keep “regard” at the forefront of your mind.
~ On the complementarian vs. egalitarian debate ~ Someone mansplain complementarianism to me (ormen, what is wrong with us?) “Because ironically, the greatest argument against this elevated religious view of men—is men. We’ve created a historical body of work reprehensible enough to make Complementarianism laughable. If the abhorrent behavior of men is trying to make an argument for moral superiority, we ain’t looking’ that good, fellas. I think we need to make room at the table and the pulpit and the office, and realize that it’s been a long time coming and it’s a really good thing.”
5 False Assumptions about Egalitarians
1. Egalitarians don’t respect Scripture.
2. Egalitarians are wishful thinkers when it comes to the Bible.
3. Egalitarians don’t understand complementarianism.
4. Egalitarians deny that men and women are different.
5. Egalitarians undermine the church.
I noticed that our post, “The Theology of Empowering Women: Part 1,” which is a transcription of a Kris Vallotton sermon, gets a fair amount of traffic, so I was scrolling down taking a fresh look at it this morning and saw in the comments section this interaction I had with a complementarian. I want to share it in its own post because it seems to cover a broad spectrum of differences of perspective between the two ideologies, and also the misconceptions that complementarians have of egalitarians.
The first and most obvious is that the author seems to distinguish between the extent of inspiration of Paul’s writings and the writings recorded about Christ.
He never says anything about inspiration. He talks about context. Paul was writing letters to specific congregations with unique cultural contexts. He is not suggesting that Paul’s words were uninspired. His words were just what those churches needed to hear – the intended audience for his letters was narrow, not larger like the Old Testament books of law, etc.
To generally make Paul’s writings only temporary and cultural has the same effect as destroying their authority which is gained from their inspiration. If one can dismiss Paul’s teaching about headship as only cultural and because of male dominance then the impact of the headship teaching is destroyed.
Yes, absolutely. But I wouldn’t say that Paul’s teaching is destroyed…only an incorrect interpretation of his meaning. Which is a good thing, if you’re misunderstanding someone’s meaning, to come to a right understanding.
Of course, there is the rub. What did Paul actually mean? Did he mean what thousands of people, hundreds of commentators over centuries have taught, or did he mean what some recent reinterpretation, in my opinion, diminution, of his teaching is now propounded. Modern reinterpretation is not necessarily better, indeed it could be argued to be worse, than is traditional teaching. If women should now be elders, in spite of hundreds of years of other teaching, then inherent to that teaching is the assumption that all of those commentators and all of those men and women over the centuries have been wrong. That seems to me to be a bit bordering on, if not outright, egotistical. “We now know better than did all those poor uneducated, culturally enslaved, predecessors of ours.”
While I don’t have the time now to respond in detail, what I do see is that the question Pilate asked, “What is truth?’ is still very much with us. If when Eve was created God did not intend for her to be a “helpmate” (older English) to her husband, why did the author of Genesis write it that way. If the Holy Spirit inspires God’s word through human authors, then He knows the future and the cultures of the future. He gave a trans-cultural principle in the creation of Eve. She was a helper to her husband. That in itself does not define male dominance, but it does speak to the Christian husband/wife relationship. Sorry, don’t have time right now for more. I do see a very dangerous slippery slope away from truth and inspiration to re-definition from a modern cultural perspective.
JN, I really appreciate you taking time to interact with me. I understand your concern. I come from a complementarian background myself, interpreting the Bible through that lens for nearly 30 years, as well as through my seminary years. I have only been studying this issue for the past four years after I was baffled by a call from God to co-pastor with my husband. Here is an egalitarian explanation of our understanding of “helpmate” that I found to be very ‘helpful’:). Again, thank you so much for your comments. I am enjoying our conversation!http://newlife.id.au/equality-and-gender-issues/a-suitable-helper/
The following Stott commentary gives a deep sense of the Biblical intention of the husband/wife relationship. The stereotypical condemnation of those of us who see equal value but differing roles is unfair and consequently without merit. One needs only to look at the human body to see the differences. If biologically we are different then emotionally, sociologically and spiritually we are different. Why to women want to be men or women want men to become women, as seems to be the case with some feminists and even some Christian feminists? For husbands to fulfill their God-given responsibilities they must be different than their wives. This by definition is complementarian. I know the Stott comment is long but I believe it will be helpful to keep this discussion Biblical not so strongly cultural. There is much more to be said, but this is already too long.
THE MESSAGE OF EPHESIANS. A Commentary by John Stott.
Ephesians 5:21-33 Summary.
Taking the husband first, what Paul stresses is not his authority over his wife, but his love for her. Rather, his authority is defined in terms of loving responsibility. To our minds the word ‘authority’ suggests power, dominion and even oppression. We picture the ‘authoritative’ husband as a domineering figure who makes all the decisions himself, issues commands and expects obedience, inhibits and suppresses his wife, and so prevents her from growing into a mature or fulfilled person. But this is not at all the kind of ‘headship’ which the apostle is describing, whose model is Jesus Christ. Certainly, ‘headship’ implies a degree of leadership and initiative, as when Christ came to woo and to win his bride. But more specifically it implies sacrifice, self-giving for the sake of the beloved, as when Christ gave himself for his bride. If ‘headship’ means ‘power’ in any sense, then it is power to care not to crush, power to serve not to dominate, power to facilitate self-fulfilment, not to frustrate and destroy it. And in all this the standard of the husband’s love is to be the cross of Christ, on which he surrendered himself even to death in his selfless love for his bride. Dr. Lloyd-Jones has a striking way of enforcing this truth, ‘How many of us’, he asks, ‘have realized that we are always to think of the married state in terms of the doctrine of the atonement? Is that our customary way of thinking of marriage?… Where do we find what the books have to say about marriage? Under which section? Under ethics. But it does not belong there. We must consider marriage in terms of the doctrine of the atonement.’
As for the wife’s duty in the marriage relationship, it surprises me how unpopular this passage is among many women. When it is read at a wedding and it provokes a feminine outcry, I find myself wondering how carefully it has been read and in particular whether it has been read in its total context. Let me spell out five points which will, I hope, demonstrate that it is not the blueprint for oppression which many think, but rather a charter of genuine liberty.
a). The requirement of submission is a particular example of a general Christian duty.
That is, the injunction ‘wives submit’ (verse 22) is preceded by the requirement that we are to ‘submit to one another’ (verse 21). If, therefore, it is the wife’s duty as wife to submit to her husband, it is also the husband’s duty as a member of God’s new society to submit to his wife. Submissiveness is a universal Christian obligation. Throughout the Christian church, including every Christian home, submissiveness is to be mutual. For Jesus Christ himself is the paragon of humility. He emptied himself of his status and his rights, and humbled himself to serve. So in the new order which he had founded he calls all his followers to follow in his footsteps. ‘Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another.’ (1 Pet.5:5). Should not the wife even rejoice that she has the privilege of giving a particular demonstration in her attitude to her husband of the beauty of humility which is to characterize all members of God’s new society?
This is specially so when it is seen that her self-humbling is not coerced but free. It must have been very obvious in the ancient world. The wife had no status and few rights, as we have seen. Yet the apostle addresses her as a free moral agent and calls upon her not to acquiesce in a fate she cannot escape, but to make a responsible decision before God. It is this which ‘begins the revolutionary innovation in the early Christian style of ethical thinking.’ Voluntary Christian self-submission is still very significant today. ‘Jesus Christ demonstrates rather than loses his dignity by his subordination to the Father. When a person is voluntarily amenable to another, gives way to him, and places himself at his service, he shows greater dignity and freedom than an individual who cannot bear to be a helper and partner to anyone but himself. Ephesians 5 supports anything but blind obedience or the breaking of the wife’s will. Rather, this chapter shows that in the realm of the crucified Servant-Messiah, the subjects respect an order of freedom and equality in which one person assists another – seemingly by renouncing rights possessed, actually in exercising the right to imitate the Messiah himself…A greater, wiser, and more positive description of marriage has not yet been found in Christian literature.’
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The John Stott Bible Study is taken from The Message of Ephesians: God’s New Society. The Bible Speaks Today John Stott. Used by permission of Inter-Varsity Press UK, Nottingham. All rights reserved.
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I think it is important to note that the earliest copies of Ephesians do not repeat the word “submit” in verse 22. Paul wrote in vs. 21 to all Christians to submit to one another, and goes on to describe what that would look like in marriage. There were also no verse numbers or titles when Paul wrote his letters, so vs. 21 and following were more clearly connected thoughts. The injunction, “wives submit” was edited later on and does not come from Paul. I agree with Stott’s commentary about mutual submission, which I think this passage in Ephesians is fleshing out.
I would also like to say that I do not condemn complementarians. I respect your viewpoints and I understand your heart in the matter – you love Jesus! You love God’s Word! You are here talking with me because you care about truth. It would be unjust of me to think poorly of you and not give you the benefit of the doubt.
And I don’t think the idea is to make men women and make women men. Feminism is about equality between men and women. Egalitarianism is a worldview that believes God’s heart on the matter of gender roles is that there is no more male or female, we are all one in Christ. Not that biologically we are not different, but spiritually God gives gifts and callings regardless of gender, and leadership in the Church is open to women.
No male nor female clearly is not a statement of redefinition of cultural roles or Paul would be denying himself. The matter of value is the issue. Men never were more valuable spiritually before the Lord, but you cannot read Scripture and not distinguish role differentiations. You have not Biblical basis to say that all Scripture was tainted by culture and is therefore invalid when the culture changes.
I never said Scripture was “tainted” by culture, or that it is invalid when the culture changes. I said you have to consider culture when you are interpreting the meaning of a particular passage. We all read Scripture through a cultural lens, interpreting according to our deeply ingrained cultural associations.
What would Paul be denying himself of? I don’t think Paul’s spiritual authority came from his maleness. It came from God.
There is the question that first bothered me as a complementarian. If male-only authority is the rule, then why are there so many exceptions to that rule throughout the Bible?
What exceptions? If you are referring to the female judge, she herself was reluctant to exert that authority. Almost every principle has a few exceptions. Is there ever a time to lie? The pretend beggars with worn clothes and dried bread lied. The mothers of Egypt lied when they hid their male babies. So, obviously there are exceptions to good principles.
The clear historical teaching of Scripture is the male headship of the home. The male eldership in Israel. The male eldership in the church. Why does the modern feminist movement believe it has the right to contradict the Bible. Male leadership is not male dominance nor female subservience at its core, it is order. The human body has a head. The visible church in the world has a head (the group of male elders). Why does anyone think that what God prescribed in the Old Testament and described in the New Testament is less acceptable now because we have feminism demanding “equality.” There is no such thing as equality in function. Equal value, yes, but never equal function.
I strongly disagree with you that Egalitarians (this is not a feminist movement) believe they have a right to contradict the Bible. People have had different views on many issues since the beginning of Christianity. Egalitarians are not demanding “equality” because of a new cultural viewpoint on the Bible, they are demanding equality because they strongly believe God’s design is not hierarchical, that hierarchy is a result of the fall. They are trying to work with God towards reconciling the world, abolishing the effects of sin. I am sharing these articles to demonstrate the Egalitarian perspective. It doesn’t come from an agenda but from an interpretation of Scripture. Both complementarians and egalitarians have a high view of Scripture. In fact, we have a whole lot in common. Just not the idea of male-only authority.
Dr. Walt Kaiser is a fine scholar. I however do not agree with his interpretation of the Genesis passage. Without that interpretation his extended arguments are much weaker, if indeed they can be maintained at all. The fact still remains that all the elders of the OT and the NT were men. All the description of responsibilities in the NT are for men. Paul does not say the elderess should be the wife of but one husband. He does say the elder should be the husband of one wife (technically, a one-woman man and not a one-man woman).
As you said, it comes down to interpretation. We can continue to go back and forth, but we are coming from very different perspectives and it is unlikely that either one of us is going to change our mind today. I was hoping more than anything to demonstrate that egalitarians are sincere followers of Jesus and that this is not a matter of rebellion towards God and His design. Jesus prayed that we would have a spirit of unity, and I believe that you and I can still affirm each other as brother and sister in Christ and go on with genuine love for each other despite our differences. I appreciate your interaction here on the blog and hope you continue to be a reader.
I have no problem with fellowship as open doors make such possible.
What I do have a problem with is that there seems to be a willingness on the part of egalitarians to assume that we complementarians have a low regard for women. I don’t think that is fair nor do I think that women who are complementarians are in any way, for that reason, limiting themselves.
The matter of headship is not only a Biblically correct thing, it is a freeing thing. As Christ is the head of the church, we are freed to respect his responsibilities toward us. As the husband is the head of the wife, she is freed to allow him his role. If his role is filled with love, it is not an onerous thing. It does bring order to the home as the head brings order to the body and as Christ being head brings order to the church body. If she “reverences” her husband, he will be strengthen and able to lead in a humble godly way as he should.
But as you say, we will not likely persuade each other. Minds that are made up are hard to change.
I wholeheartedly agree that we shouldn’t assume negative things about other people. Egalitarians should not assume complementarians have a low view of women, and complementarians should not assume egalitarians have a low view of Scripture. Because you know what happens when you assume something? You make an “ass out of you and me.”
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Also, I had to Google “URW” – in case you are also unsure what that means, it is “You’re welcome.” I appreciated having this very civil conversation with JN!
It is an honor and a pleasure to share this sermon from Zoë Faith Reyes, our sister in Christ and in community at North Harbor Community Church in midcoast Maine. In the weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, the teaching team at North Harbor did a series called A Peace of Suffering. If you are interested in listening to the entire series, you can do so here. It was profoundly helpful to look closely at the topic of suffering as a church family. And in the spirit of The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors’s mission to empower women and girls to pursue their callings and develop their spiritual gifts for the building of God’s Kingdom, we wanted to offer Zoë as an example of a woman using her gift of teaching to greatly bless her church family. Enjoy her sermon!
Zoe’s San Fransisco Team on top of a windy hill
The Way through the Waves A Peace of Suffering – Part 6
I recently read an article about one of my favorite topics, Resilience, the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Almost as an aside, the article mentioned that research has shown that people who are members of faith communities regularly demonstrate stronger resilience. At the same time, I was feeling heavy with the weight of trials and sufferings that I felt that the members of my own faith community [including myself] were undergoing. “How?!” I wondered. “What is it about people in faith communities that enables them to be more resilient? How can I tap into that capacity? How can I offer that power to my brothers and sisters of faith??” With these burning questions weighing on my mind, I entered into a dark and beautiful journey into the world of pain.
For one, I have to admit, “I hurt.” I can’t begin to preach at my community as if I have it all together, am above this fray, I have to admit the hurt in my body, mind, heart and soul. Any outsider might assess my “suffering” differently, but Pain is Pain. If I worry about those external assessments, I might belittle or glorify my pain, but both approaches only help me avoid actually dealing with it. And as attractive as avoiding pain seems, I can not forget the worst pain I ever experienced. When I went into labor with my second child and attempted a VBAC, his heart rate indicated he was in distress. Due to my history and his present condition, I was whisked away for an emergency C-section, which required an emergency administration of general anesthetic. They struck a needle into the back of my hand and it felt like a freight train had tunneled into my hand and up my arm instead. The feeling that effectively took all pain and other feeling away was easily the most excruciating physical pain I have ever known. So I neither can, nor am I sure I want to remove all pain from my life.
For two, I know YOU hurt, and I hurt for you. I hate that in my helplessness, I can not shoo away your chronic pain; make the world treat you with the love and respect you deserve; erase the trauma from you past; bring back the people you have loved and lost; I may not even be able to get through the walls you’ve erected to keep anyone from knowing you are in pain and in need of help in the first place. And there’s despair in that. Despair is when you feel like tomorrow will be no different from today, or in other words, despair is the absence of hope. I have known despair all too well, far too many times. AND, so many times when I have faced my despair, I have found hope. Hope is a learned skill, learned in the context of relationship. I am learning to hope as I experience life in community.
I want to get vulnerable and share with you out of my own darkness and despair to share a picture of where despair can lead to hope, how I have time and again found peace in my suffering.
When I was in college, I co-lead a mission team to San Francisco where we fed the homeless, worked with AIDS victims; painted a mission outpost; and played with and shared love with inner city kids. Both the prep work in the year leading up to the trip and the week itself were sleepless and exhausting, but miraculously I had strength to get through each day with gusto. Until the last day, that is. On the last day, in the climax of my leadership success, one of our team members informed me that he was taking off to hang out with a friend in the city. I told him he could not, we were there on a TEAM trip. He scoffed at me and left anyway.
In a recent sermon at our church, Will Truesdell talked about our self-talk when we’re in the midst of suffering. My self-talk went something like this: “How dare he show such disregard for our team unity! I can not be held responsible for the danger he is going to get himself into in the city – he is so going to get lost on the subway!! How dare he show such disrespect for this trip’s purpose! How dare he show such disrespect for me! Why is he just abandoning me like this?!” I was feeling intense fury and disdain. Depression is sometimes defined as “anger turned inwards,” and that was exactly what I started experiencing. My anger at this guy quickly turned into, “I am a failure! I am failing my team. I am failing at ministry. I am failing myself. I am failing God.”
I prayed for help. And things got . . . worse. I felt profoundly powerless. I had no strength left. And that feeling was even scarier than my familiar feelings of depression. I could not stop crying. I could not move my body. I could not get low enough to the ground. I could not respond when I heard people asking where I was. I could not respond when people found me and asked what was wrong. I could not move when they had no time left to be patient because we had to go. I felt trapped inside a body I was too small and meager to maneuver. Friends eventually found me and carried me into a car, which carried me across the Bay to our destination. As we drove, I continued to be inconsolable. I felt as abandoned by God as by the guy who had ditched us. I felt a sense of exclusion from their concern.
Psalms 69:1-3 says: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”
I resonated strongly with that Psalm. I think the disciples also would have resonated with the Psalm the night they were in the boat on the stormy sea, just after Jesus had fed 5,000 people with a small portion of loaves and fishes. Take a minute to read Matthew 14:22-33.
They were in the middle of their ministry, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the sea, in the middle of a great storm, and Jesus was NOT there. He’s sent them on ahead of himself. Scripture says they were, “far from land, and the wind was against them.” I think they must have felt they were far from HOPE.
In the 4th [last] watch of the night [3-6am], “they had begun to despair of deliverance.” And just as their hope is nearly completely gone, they look out into the waves and think they see a ghost. They cry out in fear. Like my night in San Francisco, a bad night just got way worse.
But it’s not a ghost. It is Jesus. And Jesus replies to their cries with words of comfort. Literally translated, His words would come out something like, “Have courage, I AM; don’t be scared away.” Our biological responses to fear are: fight, flight, or freeze. But Jesus asks the disciples to choose another way. He asks them to instead Face their fear. He invites them to be present, even in this dark and scary moment.
In a sense, Peter does obey. He is not scared away. Instead, he stays. And he gets curious. He says, “if it’s really you, ask me to come to you on the water.” Jesus replies, “come.” And Peter steps out into the darkness, into the water, into the storm.
What if we got curious about our suffering and stepped into it instead of running or fighting it away?
And so, Peter walks on water, just like Jesus, until the wind picked up and delivered a full sensory assault to Peter. Hebrews 12:2 says to “fix our eyes on Jesus,” but in this moment, Peter. Just. Can’t. He experiences a failure of faith and courage, which threatens his life and his ego, and he begins to drown.
So here’s the PIVOTAL moment: Will Peter deny or embrace his inability to endure this suffering??
When I was in San Francisco, I thought the success of our trip was on my own shoulders. BUT, I could not bring the trip to a successful end. I could not hold the team together. In that moment, I couldn’t even speak.
In Peter’s moment, he cries out, “Lord, save me.” Peter embraces his suffering. In other words, Peter incorporates his pain, his death, his insufficiency into himself. HE OWNS IT.
Here, when Peter says, “Lord,” he’s using a word that means, “he to whom a person or thing belongs.” He is confessing a submissive belonging. He is expressing that he belongs to Jesus; not to himself, not to the fear, not to the waves.
The word “save” here is “sozo” in the original text. That word means “to keep safe, to protect, to restore, to make whole, to make complete.” In other words, Peter is saying, “I alone am not sufficient, I am not enough. Complete my courage. Complete my faith. Complete my strength. Make us ONE. Weave us together. Pursue our peace.”
Etty Hillsum, a Jew who ultimately died in a Nazi concentration camp came to realize that
“to exclude death [and I would add “failure” or “pain”] from life is to sacrifice a complete life.”
Shalom, Peace, is: The webbing together of God and man with all creation to create universal flourishing and wholeness. ~Cornelius Plantinga
In other words, Shalom is Completeness, made whole-ness.
It is integration instead of exclusion.
It is integration of death into life;
you into me; peace into suffering.
When Peter cries out, “Lord, save me,” he is owning his suffering and crying out for PEACE.
Jesus replies, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” In the church, we can use the “little faith” phrase to imply that good Christians shouldn’t be so bogged down by suffering or grief, if they had more faith, “this” wouldn’t be such a problem. But I wonder . . . what was Peter doubting? Maybe Peter doubted that Jesus made him able to walk on the water in the first place, that Jesus would see it through until they reached each other, that Jesus, with his presence, would help him suffer the storm.
Maybe Peter doubted that the whole point of any of this mess was not that Peter get to walk on water, but to join with Christ and together endure their suffering. Maybe Peter doubted that the whole point of all of this crazy life with Christ was LOVE.
I hadn’t been doing the good work in San Francisco the whole time. As we had prepared, chose the team, did the work in the city . . . I had thought that serving Jesus through meeting Him in the people we served was the goal. But I was too blind to see that He was also the archer. He was powering the work. His love was making it possible for us to show love to people in San Francisco.
**His love made a way for us, for me, to enter into his love. **
I humbly suggest that maybe I have some guesses about what Jesus thinks Peter was doubting, and what that tells us. But I don’t think it is inconsistent with what is said elsewhere. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says:
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
And in 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10, Paul conveys God’s message to him:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Jesus doesn’t calm the storm in this instance, nor does he necessarily exert power over the elements that cause suffering. He comes under the storm and weathers it with the disciples. He is Emmanuel, God with us.
Jesus gets Peter back into the boat. Eventually, the storm dies down. And the disciples declare, “Truly you are the Son of God.” In Mark’s version of this account (Mark 6:45-52), he points out, “They were completely astounded because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened “ ~Mark 6:51-52. A hardened heart is one covered with thick skin, callused, made dull, having lost the power of understanding. People who have calluses aren’t born that way. They are people who have grown tough skin because of a wound or significant friction, they’ve had to toughen up to just get through, to survive. And that thick skin is hard to cut through to do the true wound-healing. “Just surviving” impairs understanding. When Jesus fed the 5,000, as Dan preached about in the last sermon series, He was filling a gap in the disciples capacity and in their faith. Here, he is doing the same thing again in a much more visceral way [point by Manny Reyes.]
“True omnipotence may not be found in a distant and separate power over something or someone, but rather in the intimate experience of being wounded for and with.” ~Gerald May, Dark Night of the Soul, p. 197
As Dan has pointed out in previous sermons in this series, to Suffer, from the latin, means “to bear from below.” Instead of exerting power over here, Jesus suffers with and for his disciples.
“True omnipotence may not be found in a distant and separate power over something or someone, but rather in the intimate experience of being wounded for and with.”
Back to me in San Francisco, trapped in my powerlessness . . . the car I was in arrived at our destination, and I was pulled out, not ready to enter the house with the group, but stood outside alone with Manny on the edge of an hilltop, in the night, in the middle of a rushing wind. And in the middle of that full sensory assault of wind and darkness, I experienced God’s quiet, gentle words to me, “Be still. I AM.” With those words, I could feel His comfort and have the courage to listen on to what else He had to say to me. He didn’t speak to the situation. He didn’t make that guy suddenly appear and apologize. But He did assure me that I was not alone. I was not “fired” from serving Him. Manny would be my partner in service – as he was already demonstrating as he held me in that moment that he would be able to hold me in the ministry God had laid out for us in the future. But most importantly, He showed me Emmanuel, God WITH us, was there to stay with me for the journey. And that truth diminished my other fears and concerns, of which that dude would be one of the least.
This story out on the water looks to me like a microcosm of the greater story of the gospels: God on high saw the people He loved suffering, so He entered into their lowliness in order to be with them, to endow strength into them so that they might endure. This story and my story are both miniature incarnations, Christ manifesting His presence to save. When Jesus entered into their suffering, spoke into their fear, and saved Peter. He issoftening hard hearts.
I think an exoskeleton, like the shell on a turtle, the skeleton on the outside, is a good picture for a hardened heart. When Jesus suffers with and for the disciples and for us, He cuts through thick callused skin dulling our senses, healing the leprosy of the heart and making us vulnerable. He completes our incomplete courage with His own strength. In our unification, He builds a new skeleton within us. We are transformed into a creature with an endoskeleton, flexible and durable, not safe, but saved, completed.
Transformed,
we are better equipped to weather the rest of the storm, and most importantly, we are not alone.
I originally shared this message on Palm Sunday, the day when the church remembers Jesus, who knew that His betrayal, denial, and death were coming, entering into Jerusalem in a coronation parade. Knowing all that He knew, he allowed the people to sing Hosana over Him, as the King of the Jews. I wouldn’t have. I, who do what I can to exclude death and failure and pain and betrayal from my life, would have been infuriated with those people with palm branches waving their praises, knowing they would turn on me in a matter of days. But he integrates his death into his life, the betrayal into the praise, because he IS life enlarged. AND he does it all for the sake of LOVE, so that we could join him – through our pain – and also integrate death into our life for full, durable, thriving life – which is to say life with him.
PS 77: 19 Your way was through the sea, / Your path, through the mighty waters.
No fear can hinder now the love that has made a way into his love.
Hosanna to the Prince of Peace.
Zoë Faith Reyes was born and raised in the church in Houston, Texas. She has B.A.’s in Philosophy and English from Westmont College and a Masters in Social Work from California State University East Bay. Zoe has done mission work in Tecate and Reynosa, Mexico; Sewanee, Tennessee; Houston and Galveston, Texas; Kingston, Jamaica; San Francisco, California; and Kandy, Sri Lanka. She has worked for seven nonprofits, including Project Peace which she co-founded and for which she was a founding board member and CEO. She is currently serving as mother for Sofia (5) and Daniel (2); wife for Manuel Reyes; steward for a small bit of earth in Brunswick, Maine; Community Development Director for North Harbor Community Church; and photographer for Zoe Reyes Photography. If she has done anything of worth in this life, it is a result of the power of Christ in her, and to the glory of God.
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JN 
The Beautiful Kingdom Builders 
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