Thursday, June 08, 2006
Getting Nurture In Giving It, Or Church Is Not For Me
I did a post Monday wherein I bemoaned the fact that I have given up the expectation of receiving nurture from church. When I read this post at GospelDrivenLife, I want to riff on that idea a bit. I should not have moaned on this fact, but celebrated it. Lauterbach begins by looking at Jonathon Edwards.
The hard part is to remember Who I am giving to. It is so easy to give to people, maybe the institution. It is even easier for those in institutional authority to take advantage of my desire to give for their own ends, instead of the God that I seek to serve. But therein lies the place where I can find the real nurture in the sacrifice.
You see, if I can learn to give to God, even in bad circumstances, then I am learning to imitate Christ - Christ who gave His life for a bunch of ungrateful sinners like us, abused, misused, and crucified by the religious authorities of the time. Isn't that what it is really all about.
Cross-posted at How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: sacrifice, nurture, Christian growth
To use another term -- sin turns us in on ourselves. All things revolve around me. My interest and their affect upon my happiness or misery is the final measurement. This, says Edwards, is the opposite of true virtue, which is a benevolent desire to all beings, founded first in delight in God.But he goes on to quote BB Warfield:
Edwards goes so far as to assert that all "benevolence" outside of a delight in God Himself -- philanthropy, family affection, patriotism, and apparent interest in the public good -- is nothing more than self-absorption in new forms. That is offensive to our day -- as it was to his day. What is surprising is that Edwards thought loving family was not necessarily virtuous -- nor loving country -- not unless it was accompanied by wider sympathies.
It is not to mere self-denial that Christ calls us, but specifically to self-sacrifice; not to unselfing ourselves, but to unselfishing ourselves. Self-denial for its own sake is in its very nature ascetic, monkish . . . . it concentrates our whole attention on self . . . narrows and contracts the soul. . . . It is not to this that Christ's example calls us . . . He was led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others . . . . and self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men. Wherever men suffer, there we will be to comfort. Wherever men strive, there we will be to help. . . . Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them. It means entering into every man's hopes and fears, longings and despairs. . . . It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives.I read this material and I conclude that while dividing church into what I get and what I receive is a step in the right direction (at least I am giving something) it does not take where I am supposed to be, which is to simply give.
The hard part is to remember Who I am giving to. It is so easy to give to people, maybe the institution. It is even easier for those in institutional authority to take advantage of my desire to give for their own ends, instead of the God that I seek to serve. But therein lies the place where I can find the real nurture in the sacrifice.
You see, if I can learn to give to God, even in bad circumstances, then I am learning to imitate Christ - Christ who gave His life for a bunch of ungrateful sinners like us, abused, misused, and crucified by the religious authorities of the time. Isn't that what it is really all about.
Cross-posted at How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: sacrifice, nurture, Christian growth
