Amateurs!

According to Dictionary.com, amateur originates from the Latin word for lover and means:

1. a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons.
2. an athlete who has never competed for payment or for a monetary prize.
3. a person inexperienced or unskilled in a particular activity.
4. a person who admires something; devotee; fan.

In Luke 7:36-50, Jesus was invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner. The Pharisees were the religious “professionals,” who worked hard to keep all the commandments and added more commandments just to be on the safe side. During the meal a woman who was known to be a sinner (often assumed to be a prostitute, but the Bible doesn’t say that) comes and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair. Jesus uses her example to point out, “her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (v. 47). This woman, who was considered a religious amateur because of her lack of obedience to the law, was held up as an example to the professionals because of her love.

Growing up in churches of various denominations (because we moved frequently), I got the impression that Christianity was about obeying the laws of the Old Testament, especially the Ten Commandments. I knew from a young age that I was a sinner in need of repentance. I don’t remember ever hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel message—that we can never perfectly obey God’s standards and that is why Jesus came to die for us, so that by believing in Him we could be made right with God and considered holy in God’s eyes. Up until college, as far as I knew it was all up to me to be as good as I could and to confess my sins and hope that God would let me off the hook one more time.

I worked hard to be a professional Christian, not knowing that Jesus Christ is more interested in amateurs—those who know they can’t live up to the perfect standard but follow Him out of love. Even years later I find myself thinking “I should be better than this by now.” To paraphrase Brennan Manning’s words, “God expects more failure from you than you expect from yourself.”

In 1 John 4:19 we learn that “We love because He first loved us.” Working backward in that chapter, His love casts out fear of punishment (v. 18), we can have confidence before God (v. 17), we abide with Him daily (v. 16), and we love others with the same kind of love (vv. 7-12). When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment, He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40). Christian faith is not about trying harder to be perfect, but about loving the One who first loved us and letting His love flow in and through us.

There is no call for religious professionals in the Kingdom of God. We are all called to be amateurs—for the love of God. The Apostle Paul threw away his religious credentials “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). Religiosity will tend to make us (like the Pharisees) think of ourselves more highly than we ought. But remembering that we are only saved because of God’s grace should make us grateful recipients and loving followers.

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Strong and Weak

There’s a poem from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I often remember, “Who Am I?” (You can read the whole poem here.) The gist of it is the question of whether he is the confident public persona he projects or the “contemptible woebegone weakling” that he experiences internally, or both at the same time. That’s probably a question we all face at times. (At least, I hope I’m not the only one!) We can be pretty good at portraying confidence and competence in certain areas of life while simultaneously feeling like idiots for our failures and weakness in other areas.

I’ve probably written before that pride and shame are two sides of the same coin. We all crave approval and affirmation, and we generally try to hide anything that makes us look bad. But then we read the words of the Apostle Paul in his letters to the Corinthian believers. He talks about boasting in the wrong things (2 Cor. 10:12-18), God using the weak and foolish to shame the wise (1 Cor. 1:26-31), and he concludes, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9b).

Throughout his letters, Paul refers to the strength that comes from God. He uses multiple Greek words that are sometimes translated establish or commit or empower, depending on what Bible translation you prefer. Here are just a few of his statements (Strong’s numbers noted):

• “[I pray] that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened [2901] with power through His Spirit in your inner being” (Eph. 3:16).
• “Finally, be strong [1743] in the Lord and in the strength [2904] of His might” (Eph. 6:10).
• “I can do all things through Him who strengthens [1743] me” (Phil. 4:13).
• “Being strengthened [1412] with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Col. 1:11).
• “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established [950] in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7).

Bonhoeffer makes the comment in a letter to Eberhard Bethge of July 16, 1944,

“Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us not by virtue of his omnipotence but rather by virtue of his weakness and suffering! This is the crucial distinction between Christianity and all religions… The Bible directs people toward the powerlessness and the suffering of God; only the suffering God can help.”

Our existence, our salvation, our sanctification, and our service are not by our own strength and abilities, but because of Christ alone. We can boast in our weakness because that is where His strength is revealed (2 Cor. 12:9a).

For me personally, it’s okay that I’m an accountant who’s bad at mental math. It’s okay that social interactions create anxiety and exhaustion. Sleepless nights should be a reminder that I’m not the one in control—God is (though that still doesn’t help me to sleep better). I’ve had a lot of reminders of my weakness lately and I, like many of us, need to remember God’s strength and sufficiency.

“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (2 Thess. 2:16-17).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Fully Present

In one of his letters from prison (1944), Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge:

“You must be especially homesick… But isn’t it an essential part of human maturity, as opposed to immaturity, that your center of gravity is always wherever you happen to be at the moment, and that even longing for the fulfillment of your wishes can’t pull you off balance, away from being your complete self, wherever you are? In youth we are never entirely present, no matter where; that’s part of the essential nature of youth; otherwise they would be dullards. A [mature] man is always a whole person and wholly present, holding back nothing. He may have his longings but somehow masters them and keeps them out of sight, and the more he must overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more he will keep his own counsel and have, fundamentally, the trust of the people around him, especially younger ones who are still on the road that he has already traveled. Wishes, when we cling to them too tightly, can easily rob us of what we ought to be and can be.”

Reading that, my first thought was that he obviously didn’t live in the 21st century. It seems like everything in our world today works against us being fully present in any moment or place. Social media, and media in general, pull our attention in a million different directions. Just having a smartphone in hand distracts us from conversation. Each ding of a text or email coming in pulls your mind away from the person sitting in front of you or the task that you’re supposed to be completing. In one of the TGC Social Sanity Book Club videos, the comment was made that scrolling through Facebook you’re likely to move from one person’s emergency prayer request to another person’s praise for a new job, and you don’t have the time or mental energy to assimilate all the varying thoughts and emotions related to any of it.

We can’t live well in such a disintegrating environment. In Bonhoeffer’s words, we are no longer whole or mature people, but immature and fragmented. We no longer master our longings, but we are mastered by the programming of technology’s algorithms. Our culture is discipling us and our children. Are we alert to how we are being indoctrinated?

As much as we like the convenience and entertainment of our various devices, they are often detrimental to our real presence to the people right around us. We hit the Send button rather than talking to someone face to face. We feign omnipresence by trying to respond to friends around the world while only half-listening to the person in the same room.

I admit I love certain features of my phone. I love having quick access to books, Bible translations, and email or texts without waiting for my laptop to boot. But I have mixed feelings about the games and social media apps that entice me to waste time on things that have little or no value. And even email and text messaging are frustrating when I find that other people don’t prioritize them in the same way I do—some people demand an immediate answer that I’m not prepared to give, while others don’t respond to my questions for days at a time. It’s hard not to judge people badly for their different expectations and habits.

There are days when I’d love to go back in time to before the invention of the telephone, automobile, and railroad—when most people stayed in the same community for their whole lives and communication either happened in person or took several weeks for letters to travel. As I noted in a previous post, the “ministry of presence” has declined in frequency, but not in value. Whether we know it or not, we need one another in a real and physical way. Most of the “one anothers” can’t be done from a distance, and we need to stop imagining that they can. Let’s slow things down and be fully present with the people closest to us.

“‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (1 Cor. 10:23-24).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Do You Smell That?

In modern culture, intolerance is seen as the one forbidden sin, and tolerance has been redefined to mean acceptance and approval of any and every lifestyle except for biblical Christianity. The church has sometimes capitulated to this “doctrine.” The seeker sensitive movement was one way that churches tried to open their doors to entice in the wider culture, but often this led to a neglect of the truth that every person is a sinner in need of a Savior. I read two passages this morning that speak to these issues. The first comes from the Apostle Paul:

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Cor. 2:14-16a).

Paul is clear that the church is never going to attract everyone. Those who are predestined for salvation (Rom. 8:29-30) will find a pleasing aroma that draws them to life. But for the rest, it will be as repugnant as a rotting deer beside the road. The gospel is good news for those who will accept it and find salvation in Jesus Christ, but it is bad news for everyone else.

The church was never intended to accept or approve of sin for the sake of drawing people in. That doesn’t mean we should confront an individual’s sin the instant they set foot in the door, but it does mean we can’t let them remain in sin, believing it doesn’t really matter. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (3:5). The gospel is meant to bring death to the flesh, but life to the Spirit (Rom. 8:10).

The second passage I read is from Jesus’ words to the church in Thyatira:

“I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing My servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:19-20).

This sounds all too familiar today as we see yet another denomination fracturing over the endorsement by some leaders of sinful lifestyles. There are false prophets who have brought sin right into the church. To the world they may appear loving and faithful, but in God’s judgment they are spreading the stench of death. Jesus went on to announce His judgment against Jezebel and all who refused to repent of her teachings (vv. 21-23). This is no lighthearted tolerance of a different lifestyle. It’s a matter of eternal life or death.

The question for us is this—is the aroma we are spreading one that is pleasing to God or one that is pleasing to the world? If we please the world we are in danger of God’s judgment, but if we are pleasing to God we will condemned by the world’s standards. In the end, there is only one Judge whose opinion matters.

“Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court… It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:2-4).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Mental Health and the Church

I recently Not Quite Fine: Mental Health, Faith, and Showing Up for One Another, by Carlene Hill Byron, and following are several quotes worth considering:

22- Our conversation in the United states today suggests that we are living through a growing mental health crisis. But what if the crisis is less about our health and more about how we think about it? What if we’ve so dramatically changed our expectations about mental health that most of us can’t meet the new norm?

26- We understand that to be “mentally ill” is to vary from some standard of mental health. Easy enough. But what is an appropriate standard of mental health? …Ordinary is always whatever is expected or allowable in a given time or place. That means that changing cultural norms can redefine what was once normal as mental illness.

54- People with mental health problems seek help among the faithful for several reasons:

We hope someone can convince us that our suffering has meaning.

We want assurance that our difficult lives have purpose.

We want to experience ourselves as persons who have value—persons who have been assigned an importance that often feels intangible by a God we cannot see, and who desperately crave recognition as valued individuals within the physically present body of Christ.

We are looking for a place where we can belong, even when our mental health problems make us prickly and painful to be with.

We are, with all the faithful, looking for “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).

89- Mental health problems also tend to isolate people. Many of us, including those with mental health diagnoses, are more likely to draw inward than reach out in our most difficult moments. Stanley Hauerwas writes, “The dangerous thing about mental illness is how it tempts those so afflicted to think they are completely on their own, isolated in their distress.” But we are also likely to be, in fact, more alone than many others.

98- People who can suffer silently and invisibly are welcome in any congregation… We’re even more happy to honor pain once it has been healed. Those of us whose long-lasting suffering limits our lives often have a different experience, in church as elsewhere. This is unfortunate, because when the body behaves as it is designed and called to function, our mental health problems can diminish to some degree. When people feel loved, cared for, and safe, our mental health symptoms may become less challenging. Sometimes the symptoms diminish. Sometimes they are just less overwhelming when we live in a warm community of people who care.

99- When we select as “high potential” members only those who could help quickly multiply the congregation, we risk filling the community with what pediatric epidemiologist W. Thomas Boyce describes as “dandelions”—the kind of people who, like the bright summer flower, do all right under almost any conditions. But we’re likely to miss what he calls “orchid” people—those whose lives are marked by extremely high potential for both outstanding contributions and catastrophic failure because of their extreme reactivity to their surroundings.

100- William Nash said that the people who are most likely to overcome mental health challenges are those who found relationships where “somebody listened to them, really listened… without becoming disgusted, without judging,” and still loved them. For the sufferer to experience that love as genuine, Nash said, “it can’t really be a helping professional like me who’s paid to come in and give you 50 minutes of an hour.” The love that heals is not for sale.

108- When we let ourselves define others by their difficulties, as if these are immutable, we excise God and ourselves from the transforming work God empowers people to do.

123- The quietness and rest that people with mental health problems need is also something we all need… Most of us require more stillness than our cultures are generally willing to give. For us to live according to the pace and drive of contemporary Western culture is for us to burn through our neural circuitry in ways that lead to disruptive and disorderly crises. For us to honor God with our lives, we need to live in ways that may seem out of step with many around us.

129- Successfully managing feelings requires knowing that feelings aren’t less than thoughts; they’re simply different from thoughts. Without feelings, we would miss some of the information God has encoded into our systems of gathering and responding to God’s world… Many feelings are at the core of what allows us to connect and bond in human community.

144-145- For an individual with mental health problems, the special challenge is to discern the useful feelings—those that come in response to a situation and give clues to personal values and purpose—from the feelings that simply come like storm surges. There is rarely any meaning to be found in the latter. All that can be done is to set the feeling aside and do the next thing. But without good discernment, a person risks either ignoring big feelings that have useful information or attending excessively to feelings whose only meaning is to show that one’s body is out of whack right now.

181- What people with mental health problems generally need from churches is not mental health treatment but Christian friendship and the kinds of caring that can emerge only among those committed to each other. Faith communities are designed by God as places where people can belong, find meaning and purpose in life, be recognized as valued persons in the sight of God and other people, and find hope for the days to come. These kinds of caring don’t require professional support. In fact, they happen most effectively when they are provided long term by nonprofessionals.

***

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Image courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.