loving mercy

Our Wednesday evening bible study just finished Micah. We obviously spent some time on Micah 6.8. One attendee sent me the following:

More thinking about Micah 6: I think loving mercy means an affective disposition that begins and is cultivated by showing mercy but extends far beyond that toward the character of one's basic constitution. I was thinking, I can do mercy but can do so in a way that begrudges mercy (especially since mercy is often thought of in forensic or economic terms). When Micah calls us to love mercy, I think he calls us to a much more profound thing, and much more difficult thing, but also much more wonderful thing, that is a disposition to God and God's creation that emplaces itself within the dialectic of the prophesy itself (call to unfaithfulness, unfaithfulness, judgment, mercy, call to faithfulness, unfaithfulness...). God calls us to love that, to find our place within it, and to love that in a way that helps us situate our lives within it as the narratival structure of our lives, but also relates us to the world in way that makes us increasingly vulnerable to its suffering (on so many levels, as Micah seems to enjoin mainly through the curse of the rich) and responses to to that vulnerability. Again, this can only be done by specific acts of mercy, practices the cultivate this love, and in turn make these practices more regular parts of who we are as persons. I've been thinking a lot about stuff like this as of late (political ecology, political theology, ordinary language philosophy, etc), and so I was grateful for this word on loving mercy as a way to encapsulate this disposition.

Election...

It was 4 years ago that I raced around the South Ward of Trenton, spent some time in a makeshift campaign headquarters in a room above a neighborhood pub (poor campaigns take free space where they can get free space), met with an election board about improper ballots and celebrated a first place finish, but not an outright victory, in a funeral home (see previous parenthetical note). Yes, I’m talking about the 2006 Trenton City Municipal Election and my race for the South Ward City Council seat.

Today is the 2010 Trenton City Municipal Election. I’m told there are 39 entrants for 7 council seats and 1 mayoral position.

I am waxing nostalgic, though not lamenting my distance from the show taking place today [in dripping irony, I understand that Ringling Brothers will make its way to Trenton tomorrow—they probably feared that the political circus would trump their own business!].

I had spent from late January until the second Tuesday in May knocking on doors almost every afternoon and meeting residents. Additional activity included five debates, two commercials (one in Spanish), several radio spots, almost daily print ads, purchasing and putting up signage, formatting and printing fliers, building a website and attending city council meetings. Those months are a blur.

I remember vividly Election Day though. From a lengthy and trying period of frenetic activity, doing all I could do including canvassing the night before until 9pm, the day of reckoning arrived. It was out of my hands. I could not affect the outcome. As citizens entered the voting booth and made a decision, I was no longer a participant but a spectator. The “will of the people” and all that.

I remember feeling some resignation, a sense of helplessness, and like I had gotten strapped into a roller coaster that was now on its chain-driven incline getting ready to approach that first gut wrenching drop. I also remember having the pressure of working to win slide off my back.

This got me reflecting on how our paths to salvation mirror that day. No matter what we do, our eternal security is in God’s hands. We don’t earn grace or work for it or knock on enough doors for it. We can’t promise our way to redemption or win a debate to secure eternal purpose. In the end, it is a gift. God makes the decision, or more accurately made the decision 2000 years ago. The Good News is that Jesus has voted for you and that is the only election you need win.

seats at God's table...

Yesterday was a sad day. I was invited to sit down with a couple of other local pastors to talk about the future of the Waco Regional Baptist Association. The WRBA is an association of local Baptist churches—open to all Baptist churches (CBF, National Baptists, Progressive National Baptists, SBC, independent Baptists)--that covers McLennan county and some neighboring areas without an association. Tim Randolph, a Calvary member, is the director of the WRBA. He is doing his level best to make the WRBA relevant in a time when denominational ties are meaning less and less. In my opinion, he is on the right track in seeking feedback, doing some strategic planning and so forth.

The discussion of the WRBA drew me to the table. That’s the topic that drew the other two pastors and a facilitator to the table. The topic went from specifics about the WRBA to our churches and other churches. It was in this transition that I became disheartened. One pastor of mid-sized Baptist church noted that he only spent time with epistemologically like-minded pastors and had no interest in associating with professionals who did not fit his intellectual preferences. The other pastor, from a similarly sized congregation in Waco, said that there was little energy or interest in networking or mingling with others that were not theologically inclined as that congregation is.

From these comments, one might deduce that their congregations are monochromatic, an affliction affecting all parts of the spectrum of Waco church life, and of one mind theologically. One might also deduce that the inhabitants of these churches enjoy their lack of diversity and wear their homogeneity as safe, warm blanket.

These guesses could be wrong. I hope they are. But as a culture we are drawn to the same much more often than we are drawn to differences.

I have a particular bent to my theology; I also realize that my theology is far from perfect. I hope that I lack the hubris and arrogance of floating around thinking that I have all the answers and that everyone else is an unenlightened brute. I learn more by being challenged. Others stretch my faith. This isn’t something to fear but something to seek.

I think of the diversity of opinion and background of the disciples. Simon the zealot had as one of his missions by virtue of being a zealot to kill Jewish traitors. Matthew was one of those Jewish traitors. But Jesus overcame that fear, that suspicion so that both could sit at a table and dine with him and dine with each other. If you read Matthew’s gospel or John’s gospel or Peter’s letters, you encounter some diversity of thought and theology. Yet, Christ is the Lord and centerpiece of each of them.

I give thanks for the diversity inherent to Calvary. I give thanks for a God big enough to embrace all of us, correct all of us and use all of us. I give thanks that there are tables at which to sit and people from which to learn within Calvary and within the WRBA.

Recent Reading:

Henry Emerson Fosdick, Christianity and Progress; Ralph Wood, Preaching and Professing