|
|
|
|
|
HeuSimp 08-08-116 Simple Spirituality Learning
to See God in a Broken World Christopher L. Heuertz InterVarsity
Press, 2008, 159 pp., ISBN
978-0-8308-3621-5 |
|
Chris Heuertz is the international director of Word Made Flesh, an
organization that exists to serve Jesus among the most vulnerable of the
world's poor. He has traveled in
nearly seventy countries. The contents are the values of Word Made Flesh: Humility, Community,
Simplicity, Submission, Brokenness "A new evangelicalism has emerged in post-religious-right America,
and we are seeing a Christianity that is closer to the poor, further from the
drums of war, a Christianity that looks a little more like Jesus." Shane Claiborne in the Foreword 1. Humility "Humility is a hard one for me.
As central to our faith, it's the most daring conversation to enter,
lest pride trip you up at any discovery or conclusion." (32) "It's humility that opens our eyes to
the discovery of God. The
self-righteous seem to have the hardest time recognizing God." (33) "It is in our intimate relationships with people who are poor, or
more accurately our friends who happen
to be poor, that our tainted views of God are transformed." "Through their desperation and forced
vulnerability, they help us see what intimacy with God looks like." (37) "Do we really allow ourselves to draw close to the consuming
nature of divine Lordship? Or are we
practicing self-deception, acting out spiritual intimacy while keeping Jesus
at a safe distance? How intimate is
our relationship with Christ?" (38)
"This is the path to humility, to really love God, know God and
be known by God." (41) 2. Community "At its best, Christian community is the body of Christ, living
and active in the world." (51) "I choose community because that's where I've found God. Who we are cannot be separated from
relationships. We were made for
relationships." (54) "Non-poor Christians mistakenly come to view God's financial and
material provision as individual blessing rather than kingdom
resources." "Sobrino writes, 'The causes of sufferings in the [Majority World]
are, to a great extent, to be found in the First World. To admit this is a necessary condition for
the First World to know itself truthfully.'" (58) [Would you agree,
agree with qualifications, or disagree?
Why? dlm] "The Western church, for the most part living in a 'Majestic
Colony,' has mistaken God's financial blessings as individual provision
rather than resources with potential for kingdom development." (67) "The gospel clearly shows us the love and compassion that God has
for the oppressed. From the beginning
to the end, the Bible is full of references to those in need and on the
margins." (70) "…it is my friends who are poor who have taught me the most about
community." (71) "In defining poverty, a portion of that definition should include
poverty as 'the inability to change circumstance,' not the inability to help oneself." (73) "Unless our communities among friends who are poor are founded in
personal humility, there can be no fruit.
We must minister among and with the broken out of a posture of
brokenness; it is the only way we will be accepted. When we realize that we have as much to
learn as we have to offer, true Christlike ministry will freely flow,
community will develop, and we will be transformed." (74) 3.
Simplicity "Many of us think that our personal geographical context justifies
our disengagement from the hurt and pain of the rest of the world." "But those who go without the basic
necessities of life, regardless of their geographical location or proximity,
are nevertheless counted as part of our family." "Their misery is our misery, their
suffering is--or should be--our suffering." (81) "An unarguable Christian response to this reality is summed up
well in a familiar challenge often ascribed to Gandhi: 'Live simply that
others may simply live.'" (81) "Simplicity is a hard one for me." (81) "I often wonder what the thousands of
books on my shelves say about my personal view of simplicity. And that's only one example of many that I
could share." "Simplicity
is hard." (82) While living in India, "Simplicity quickly became a commitment to
living a lifestyle that reflected respect for their circumstances, for their
poverty." (83) "Practically, simplicity has become my posture and intention to
live free from the bondage and control of anything other than the embrace of
God." (84) "Too easily and too often, we spiritualize Western forms of
capitalism and demonize socialism to justify over-consumption and unresponsiveness
to the global demands of justice and equality. We theologize material provision as 'God's
blessing' while failing to recognize that perhaps the material provision
placed in our trust may, in fact, be intended to advance God's kingdom or
benefit someone else…." (88) "The generosity of friends who are poor confounds me, and it is
consistent around the world." (89)
"There's something about the sorrow of poverty that creates a
tremendous capacity for joy in the souls of those who suffer the most."
(89) "The poorest people I know
are among the most generous, while many of the richest people I know seem to
be stingy in comparison." (90) "We want to make the issue about what we give, but in truth the issue is about what we keep." (93) "It seems like, in our struggle to find our way to simplicity,
lots of our 'stuff' gets in the way." (96) "Simplicity in its essence demands neither a vow of poverty nor a
life of rural homesteading."
"It requires neither a log cabin nor a hairshirt but a deliberate
ordering of priorities so as to distinguish between the necessary and
superfluous, useful and wasteful, beautiful and vulgar." (97, quoting
David Shi in The Simple Life) 4.
Submission "Dogs are transparent to the core.
Vulnerability, by contrast, is an act of a dog's will. A dog makes a cognitive progression from
their baseline of transparency to baring themselves to another. For me, being vulnerable is much more
difficult than being transparent. I
have a hard time exposing the parts of me that can be wounded. Sure, I can share my feelings with someone,
but it's tough for me to trust people with my feelings. It's not easy for me to put my needs out
there and give someone a chance to reject them. And so what I usually do is work toward
transparency as a distraction from my lack of vulnerability." (103)
There's no submission in that.
Submission is giving up oneself to the power of another; transparency
doesn't require submission because it sets the agenda of what I want to
share." "I've come to learn
that becoming vulnerable is submitting to others the deeper parts of my
life." (103) "The truth is, no one really 'owns' their own life--every breath
is a gift from God. And once we become
aware of this notion that our life is not our own, submitting our life to God
is an obvious response. Awareness of
God's grace creates an opportunity to submit who we are, what we are and all
that we might become to God." (116) "When we don't submit our lives to God and our possessions to
people in need, when we mistake our financial and material blessings as
personal provision rather than as resources with potential for kingdom
development--have we perpetuated an unjust imbalance between us and our
neighbors? Could it be that our
deformed perceptions of power, our selfish tendencies to accumulate and
hoard, cause many of the world's poor to go without their basic needs? It seems to me that we are thieves when we
hold onto those things that don't actually belong to us." (121) 5.
Brokenness Brokenness is different
from woundedness. Woundedness is the impact of the inevitable
pains shared by humanity, the internalization of human pain and the way it
plays out in our self-perceptions, relationships and human interaction. Brokenness is different--a voluntary surrender
to God's will over our own will.
Woundedness is reactive, largely determined by how we respond to
difficult or painful things that happen.
Brokenness is open even to the grace in pain. Brokenness is proactive."
"Being broken can be something that happens to us, but it can
also be something we allow to happen in us, for in the broken areas of our
lives Jesus can fill us with himself." (124) "As we are exposed to the suffering of neighbors who are poor, our
own spiritual poverty comes more clearly into view. We are broken when we recognize our utmost
need for God and leave everything
behind to have our needs met in
God. It's really that simple."
(129) "God's brokenness creates wholeness. God is breaking those things in us that are
twisted and wrong, destructive and sinful.
Once broken, those things are then redeemed and restored to be used in
their fullness for the glory of the kingdom of God." (130) "Unless we have the courage to put our hands into the hurting
places of Christ's body--the hurting places of the world--the world won't
have reason to trust that God is good." (140) Afterword "Independence still blinds me.
The entitled and selfish person inside me resists community. But community has touched my
eyes--sometimes even forcing them open to see God and his grace for me. Affluence and excess tell lies about what I
think I want and need. A small and
complex virtue, simplicity, gives me a glimpse past the giant things I don't
really need so that I can find grace in Christ, my everything." (145) |
|
* * * * **
Your comments and book recommendations are welcome.
To discontinue receiving book notes, hit Reply and put Discontinue in the text.