In the Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, Brian McLaren explores the value of our inherited faith traditions, inviting students to both honor and wrestle with them:
When we begin exploring the contemplative life, we discover a rich heritage, an ancient Tradition. For millennia, scholars, mystics, theologians, our ancestors, and people of faith in general have been blazing the trail we are now walking. We don’t have to figure out everything on our own. But being part of a tradition brings both blessings and challenges.
For example, our tradition can be the ground on which we build, or it can be the ceiling above which we aren’t allowed to grow. It can be a greenhouse that protects us from certain dangers … but that also deprives us of needed challenges.
My original tradition was a very conservative wing of the Protestant movement called the Plymouth Brethren. There were blessings in my inherited tradition to be sure, but it didn’t provide much breathing room for someone like me. I found it confining and problematic as I grew older. I was so relieved to discover there were wider and deeper Christian traditions that I could explore.
I realized that there’s a difference between a living tradition and a dying or dead one. A living tradition is still learning and growing. Yes, it looks back to celebrate its many discoveries, lessons, wisdom, and gifts from the past, but it doesn’t act as if it already has all the answers. It uses its blessings from the past to prepare participants in the present for new discoveries, new lessons, new wisdom, and new gifts.
If we’re part of a tradition over time, we realize it can change, for the better or for the worse. It can become narrower and more rigid or wider and more flexible. It can become more argumentative and arrogant or more curious and humble. It can become deeper or shallower, more self-centered or generous, more ingrown or expansive, more loving or cruel, more stagnant and complacent, or more vibrant and alive. Every tradition is “in the making,” constantly growing and changing, just as we do as individuals. Even resisting change changes a tradition!
I think what we are all really seeking is a living and healthy tradition, something that isn’t just about words or arguments, but that is about life in all its fullness and about deep, deep love—a love for this earth, a love for each other, and a love for God who we experience both within us and all around us. When we find a way into a tradition like that, a tradition of love and growth and wisdom and humility and respect—what an honor and blessing! What a waste to only live your life for something small and self-centered when you have a chance to be part of a bigger story and a deeper Tradition.
| Telephone Poles & Crosses. Skye Jethani |
 Jesus had a reputation for healing on the Sabbath, which the religious leaders saw as a violation of the Torah forbidding work on the seventh day and definitive proof that Jesus could not be a true prophet, let alone the Messiah. God’s chosen Savior, after all, would not break God’s laws. Jesus’ reputation may have been why a Pharisee invited him to his home on the Sabbath for a meal. Luke tells us that “they were watching him carefully” when a very ill man came before him. The whole scene feels like a setup. They were trying to catch Jesus breaking the law, but he deftly turned the trap back on them.“Which of you,” Jesus asked, “having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Recognizing the trap, the Pharisees didn’t answer. Jesus proceeded to miraculously heal the sick man as the self-righteous dinner guests remained silent. Why didn’t the Pharisees answer Jesus? Why didn’t they object to his “work” of healing on the Sabbath? They knew the Jewish law made an exception on the Sabbath if someone’s life was in danger. In Jesus’ scenario of a son or ox falling into a well, death was not an immediate risk, but the Pharisees knew they would each have pulled them out in violation of their own strict reading of the law. Jesus was showing his hosts that there is no law of God forbidding compassion. In fact, our devotion to God should promote, never prevent, merciful actions toward those in great need. The real sin was not healing on the Sabbath, but failing to recognize the inherent value of a person burdened by illness.True religion will never allow the first part of the Great Commandment (“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart…”) to become an excuse for not obeying the second part (“…and love your neighbor as yourself”). Sadly, separating these two things has always been a common error made by religious people. Yet, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord makes it abundantly clear that the primary way we honor, serve, and worship him is by loving those created in his image. For example, in the book of Isaiah, God’s people were engaged in religious rituals of worship, including fasting, to express their deep devotion to the Lord, but he utterly rejected these religious activities. Why? Because they their worship of God did not translate into compassion and justice toward the poor and oppressed (see Isaiah 58).David French has referred to this narrow focus on God while overlooking the needs of others as “telephone pole” Christianity. In our recent podcast conversation, he explained to me that people who only focus on their vertical relationship with God are like telephone poles—they are one-dimensional and “siloed in this personal relationship with Jesus.” But we are called to a two-dimensional faith. Our vertical connection to God is supposed to support and empower our horizontal engagement with our neighbors which is cross-shaped Christianity. In French’s view, that means engaging the gospel’s call to “ameliorate injustice in the world.”It’s a simple but useful metaphor that also explains the core conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The Pharisees in Luke’s story practiced a telephone pole faith in which the Sabbath was about honoring God and nothing more. Jesus, however, represented a cross-shaped faith in which his devotion to the Father was always, always, always revealed through his love and compassion for others. Therefore, healing a suffering man was also a way of worshipping God on the Sabbath despite the Pharisees’ objections. Likewise, we shouldn’t be surprised today when those who insist on uniting their Christian faith to justice and compassion are accused, like Jesus was, of being unfaithful to God’s law. In today’s religious landscape, telephone poles are everywhere—but it’s the cross that heals the world. |
