Four Essential Questions In the Search for Meaning and Truth

Recently, on a podcast, I was asked what I'd like people to know about my faith. It wasn't a Christian podcast, per se, and it was connected to a secular university and the audience isn't necessarily Christian. I mean, I'm sure there are Christians listening, but its not a churchy podcast. I was given 5 minutes to share. Keep in mind, this is what I'd like people to know about the religion that I adhere to if I only had a few minutes to share with them, so its not entirely personal and there wasn't time to get into everything. So, I gave it some thought and this is how I answered: 

While many think of evangelical Christianity in a political, social, or cultural perspective, I think about the person and work of Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world. 

1. I believe there is a personal God who created everything and made us and is knowable. He isn't just a force or the universe or is unknowable, but he is real and reveals himself to us through Scripture and Creation and primarily through Jesus. 

2. I believe that men and women were made in God's image and have inherent worth, value, and dignity. We have purpose and identity that comes from God and we were made for relationship with God and right relationship with one another. 

3. However, something went terribly wrong. Mankind asserted themselves to be like God and went their own way. Instead of following God's ways, mankind promoted themselves, the relationship with God was broken, and they then began to turn on each other to climb over one another to assert their own worth on their own. They tried to create their own identity apart from God. This led to personal and then societal breakdown as competition turned to violence and things just kept going sideways. We call all of this sin against God, self, and each other. Everyone knows there is something wrong with us, but we disagree on what it is exactly. 

4. But, God loves us too much to leave us alone. He created us and wants us back in relationship with him. So, Jesus was sent to take our sin, break its power, save us and forgive us, and make us into new people so we can love God and love people instead of live primarily for ourselves at odds with God and one another. 

At the heart of Christianity is this message that because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, our sins are forgiven. We receive this forgiveness and salvation by faith in Jesus and not in what we can do because our own efforts are inherently flawed and can't fix what ails us. We need a savior. Evangelical Christianity is supposed to be about how we are reconciled to God and one another through the the person and work of Jesus as he forgives us and makes all things new - including how we treat others. We can mess this message up and make it about other things because we are human and see point #3, but God's love for us is shown through the sacrifice of Jesus for us on the Cross. And, you can spend a lifetime exploring all that that means. 

Really, I believe that everyone on the planet is constantly asking and answering 4 essential questions. We all agree on the four questions, but we differ radically on the answers. The questions are: 

1. Who or what is God/gods or ultimate reality? What is the transcendent other beyond us? 

2. Who or what is mankind? What are we? What is our identity? Where do we fit in things? 

3. What has gone wrong with the world? What has gone wrong with us? Everyone on the planet knows that things are not as they should be. We differ on what things should be, but we all carry around in us this sense that something has gone wrong. 

4. How do you fix it? How do we solve our problems? Where does happiness and joy come from? How do we best live life? What is salvation? 

Those four questions are everywhere and they affect all conversations about meaning, culture, politics, and anything of a weighty nature. We engage in these questions all the time. They are spiritual questions and we're all constantly having what amounts to spiritual conversations, even if we don't recognize them as such. We differ in how the questions are framed and we really differ in how the questions are answered. As a Christian, I believe that we have answers to those questions. How and even whether we really live from those answers and they shape us becomes the quest of our lives.

The True Goal of Love for Enemies: Following Jesus

I once heard Stanley Hauerwas say that he was a pacifist not because he thought that by being a pacifist he would eliminate all war or violence or change everything. But, rather, he was a pacifist because he could not think of any other way to follow Jesus. I see that issue a bit differently than Hauerwas and, while I agree with nonviolence as a way of life, I don't ascribe to strict pacifism in that I believe that force is sometimes needed to protect the vulnerable and weak. I do not think that following Jesus requires us to be strict pacifists, but at the same time, I get his larger point. We don't take on an attitude or action because we think that by doing so we will change everything. But, rather, we live a certain way because that's what it means to follow Jesus as witnesses of his grace and love. We leave the results up to God. 

I started this point a few weeks ago on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and I got distracted and didn't finish. But, I found the notes today and thought I'd pick up with the thoughts here. One thing that intrigues me about Dr. King's approach to nonviolence is that he wasn't just using it as a way to solve the problem of injustice against Black people. He looked to a larger goal of winning over enemies and creating Beloved Community. He didn't want revenge or recompense. He also didn't just want justice. He wanted reconciliation. He knew that violence would beget more violence and more alienation and the rift would just grow wider. Instead, he wanted to see healing and hope work to build something new where everyone could flourish. You can see the aspiration in these sermon excerpts ... 

Martin Luther King, Jr. on seeking to win over opponents instead of defeat them …

There are certain things we can say about this method that seeks justice without violence. It does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. I think that this is one of the points, one of the basic points, one of the basic distinguishing points between violence and non-violence. The ultimate end of violence is to defeat the opponent. The ultimate end of non-violence is to win the friendship of the opponent. It is necessary to boycott sometimes but the non-violent resister realized that boycott is never an end within itself, but merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor; that the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption. And so the aftermath of violence is bitterness; the aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community; the aftermath of non-violence is redemption and reconciliation. This is a method that seeks to transform and to redeem, and win the friendship of the opponent, and make it possible for men to live together as brothers in a community, and not continually live with bitterness and friction.
from “Justice Without Violence,” April 3, 1957

But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. The type of love that I stress here is not eros, a sort of esthetic or romantic love; not philia, a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends; but it is agape which is understanding goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.
from “The Role of the Church in Facing the Nation's Chief Moral Dilemma,” 1957

Now, the tone of what he was saying in 1956-57 is a bit different from what he was expressing by 1968. King in 1968 saw more clearly the reluctance to change and grant justice to those who had been deemed inferior. But, he never forsake his commitment to nonviolence because it wasn't just a method to get what he wanted, but it was an expression of a larger ethic that was a core value - that those who opposed him could one day potentially be his friends. 

As I think of Jesus telling us to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and love and pray for our enemies in The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, I do not just think that he is giving us a strategy to change the world - or even to change others. King saw nonviolence as a strategy to bring about social change. I agree with him and believe he was right to engage this way. But, I don't think that the result of this kind of life is that there will be no more cheek striking or load bearing or people treating each other as enemies. Sin continues within us and in society and it keeps bringing disintegration. Rather, I do think that for many when non-violence and sacrificial love is introduced as we see enemies as potential friends, the cycle of violence and retaliation will hit a barrier that will slow it down. Sometimes, it will stop it. I believe that human dignity and value will enter the conversation, at least in part. And, in many cases, enemies WILL be transformed into friends. But, more than all of that, I believe that those who walk down this narrow path will find that this is how they follow Jesus and give witness to the Suffering Servant and Crucified King, even when those around them do not. 

We don't love our enemies just because we think that by doing so we will obliterate all violence, oppression, and injustice. Or, even because by doing so we will win them over, though we hope we will. Rather, we love our enemies because Jesus loved us and we cannot conceive of any other way to follow him.  And, we also know that when we love our enemies, God's love flows through us to others, whether they receive it or not. And, that is enough. 

"We can love completely without complete understanding."

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”

– From the Rev. John Maclean in a sermon, as written by his son, Norman Maclean in his memoir, "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories."

The clip of the sermon and reflections from the movie:

"we can love completely without complete understanding." -- That's probably overstating things a bit. We love rather poorly even when we do have understanding. But, the impulse behind this still got me thinking ...

One of the hardest things I've had to learn over the years involves my complete and total inability to produce change in anyone else, even those I love deeply. Whether it be in my church or my family or among my friends or my community, those I love the most are those that I want what is best for and those I want to see change in the most. As a pastor and minister of the gospel, I have greatly longed to see people know God and walk with Him and have worked hard - devoted my life - to help people do that. I want my family to love Jesus and know Him. I try not to be pushy, try to be a real person, try to be available, compassionate, and at the same time, firm in my beliefs regarding what is true. But, as I've grown older, I've come to realize that change isn't a method and it's not really something that we can produce in others. Try as I might, I more often than not find myself bumping up against my human limitations. And, that sometimes frustrates me. But, then I think about how stubborn I am and how hard it is for me to change, apart from a miracle of God's Spirit, and I understand better. We are all just finite humans, limited and dependent upon grace.

I was thinking and praying about this today and the quote above from a sermon from Norman's father came to mind from the movie and the book, A River Runs Through It. In the movie, Rev. Maclean says this as he is grieving and reflecting on his son Paul's life, and death. No matter how much he tried to teach, lead, and direct his son, he couldn't save him from the direction he was headed. Paul was his own person making his own decisions with his own trajectory, his own agency. At the end of it all, all that Rev. Maclean could do was to give it to God and say, "but we can still love them."

Can I love others without being in control of them? Can I love others when they go another direction, disregard me, reject me? When they don't love me back? When my love doesn't "work" to produce change? Can I love others when all that I try to do for them fails or is ignored? As Christians, we have to ask ourselves these question regularly because our call is to love God and love people, everywhere we go. Even when they ignore you or don't receive it or listen or even when they oppose you. Because that is what Jesus did for us and it is His life that lives in us. The call to follow Jesus is the call to love. That isn't a sappy love that doesn't mean anything or that just accepts whatever someone does as good and true or that has no form. No, God's love is weighty and full of substance and character and hope. It is a love that stands rooted in who God is and His goodness and truth and lives sacrificially. The true love that transforms us flows out toward others and doesn't expect to be returned.

I've thought a lot about Rev. Maclean's reflection in that sermon. When I first saw that movie and read that book when I was in college, it struck me as a weak statement, as resignation. If we see someone flailing, we have to stop them! Rescue them! Change things for them! That's what love is, I thought. Strength requires intervention, leadership, change, rescue, turnaround. But, the older I get, the more that I realize that the real strength that Rev. Maclean was displaying was that of trust. He couldn't change the future for his son that he loved with his whole being. He tried, but could not rescue him. But, that didn't mean he would stop loving. And, if we offer that love, even if it is rejected, that is what is required of us. Our hope, after all, is in God.

And, ultimately, it is God who changes us. As Jesus said in John 3, "unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And, "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." God has to do the work of making us alive, of opening our eyes, of saving us. Just yesterday, I was remembering a moment 30 years ago this month. I was a freshman in college at Mississippi State University. I had just been through a breakup with a girl I really cared for and I was quite discouraged. I was homesick and was considering transferring closer to home. I was incredibly lonely, not in church, not connected to other Christians. I had experienced salvation years before, and was a child of God, but I was living for myself and was headed nowhere, eighteen, alone, and rather depressed. It was a Friday night in the dorm and everyone was out but me. The dorm was quiet. I decided to finally get a shower, and it was in the dorm shower alone that I heard this still, small voice echo through my soul: "Your life was meant to serve Me. You'll never be happy unless you serve Me." It was God and it was like a thunder clap and lightening bolt all at once. It was a voice inside of me but outside of me at the same time. I was so far away from God, lost in myself and rebellion and pride and depression. But, out of nowhere and everywhere at the same time, God's Voice broke through it all and was strong and compassionate and hopeful and wise and full of direction. My problem was I was trying to serve myself. God reminded me in that instant that my purpose was to serve Him. I was looking for happiness apart from God. God spoke to me that my happiness would only be found in Him. Clarity broke through the fog and it was supernatural. I called my Dad and told him. He pointed me to Jesus. I started reading the Bible. But, in a few weeks, I began to drift, not knowing where to connect or how to live. But ... God kept coming after me. Again and again. Around 6-7 months later through a series of events, my life was transformed. But, it was that moment in the shower right at 30 years ago, February, 1993, that God broke through and I've never forgotten it. Later would come a more full commitment and then after that, a call to ministry. I wanted everyone to know this God who loves us and gave Himself for us.

My mistake, though, has always been when I take it upon myself to try and produce the change in others. Everyone needs an encounter with God. Everyone needs a touch from God's Spirit in that place of despair. We all need God's love to pour into our hearts and call us out from ourselves and into His light. I cannot produce that in anyone else. I can only point to Jesus who makes all things new. And, I can love without expecting anything back in return.

So, all of this reminds me that the greatest thing I can do is to love God, love people, pray for others, and ask God to work in the lives of the people I love - and those I don't yet know. We all desperately need to see Jesus, for God to break through, for Christ, by His Spirit, to make all things new.