A Spring Harrow

This is a highlight of a message I preached May 23, 2009 at Mission Fellowship Church in Middletown, DE.

Isaiah 41:8-16
Context: Is. 41:1-20

In this section of the chapter, Isaiah reminds Israel that Yahweh was the decisive actor in their life. At the begining and end of the chapter, Isaiah uses a speech of disputation, presenting the arguments of Yahweh over and against the ideological claims of Babylon. To do this, Isaiah invites the reader to imagine a courtroom scene, a law court, where different witnesses bring evidence about the identity of the one true God. Evidence is presented for Yahweh. There is no compelling evidence offered for the Babylonian gods leading to the verdict that Yahweh is the real God.

Between the two disputation speeches, Isaiah presents a series of salvation oracles that offer an assurance of Yahweh’s caring, attentive presence in the midst of Israel. The mode of speech completely focuses on on Israel’s needs.

While these two different type of speeches seem to move in opposite directions, together they all the community of God’s people to see and experience Yahweh as the one who makes the decisive difference in their lives. The massive, powerful Yahweh moves history, manipulates nations, and empowers His people. This is where we intersect our text.

God will not let go of his chosen people. He empowers them to risk (8-10)

“But you, Israel, are my servant.
You’re Jacob, my first choice,
descendants of my good friend Abraham.
I pulled you in from all over the world,
called you in from every dark corner of the earth,
Telling you, ‘You’re my servant, serving on my side.
I’ve picked you. I haven’t dropped you.’
Don’t panic. I’m with you.
There’s no need to fear for I’m your God.
I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you.
I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you. The Message translation

We are held in the firm grip of God’s almighty hand. He is our rock, strength, support, and stability. Knowing that, not intellectually but experientially, empowers us to live a dynamic, audacious faith. In knowing through our relationship with God that support structure, we now have a launching pad with which we can take God-sized risks. We know that there is a net below us that will catch us were we to struggle so we can risk it all in obedience to God.

What also helps is knowing we are called. Called people know they are called. Called people live out their calling empowered by the all-powerful God. A strong, secure foundation and a true sense of calling not only empower us to live a risky faith, they drive us to live a risky, audacious faith. It is not something we might do, it is something we have to do.

These are the people that God will use to re-shape the world (14-16)
“Do you feel like a lowly worm, Jacob?
Don’t be afraid.
Feel like a fragile insect, Israel?
I’ll help you.
I, God, want to reassure you.
The God who buys you back, The Holy of Israel.
I’m transforming you from worm to harrow,
from insect to iron.
As a sharp-toothed harrow you’ll smooth out the mountains,
turn those tough old hills into loamy soil.
You’ll open the rough ground to the weather,
to the blasts of sun and wind and rain.
But you’ll be confident and exuberant,
expansive in The Holy of Israel!

The insignificant will become a strong force. The lowly worm and fragile insects are transformed into a sharp-toothed harrow. A harrow is an implement for cultivating the surface of the soil. This distinguishes it from the plough, which is used for deeper cultivation. Harrowing is often carried out on fields to follow the rough finish left by ploughing operations. The purpose of this harrowing is generally to break up clods and lumps of soil and to provide a finer finish, a good soil structure that is suitable for seeding and planting operations. Coarser harrowing may also be used to remove weeds and to cover seed after sowing.

God wants to transform the insignificant into a instrument that can break apart the rough ground and prepare it for the seed of the Gospel. We don’t often enjoy the hard work of breaking up hard soil, but it must be done for the seed to be productive. It is the same in our culture. God transforms empowered, called people into dirt-busters, powerful instruments of His redemptive plan.

Ironically, God has only one verb in the Hebrew – “to make”. All the other verbs are associated with Israel. Therefore, Yahweh energizes, authorizes and empowers; Israel appropriates the “making” of God, taking initiative and responsibility as it carries out a re-shaping and re-making of culture.

As the church, if we can truly know in our hearts the empowerment and calling God has given to us and live our lives out of that calling and empowerment, we could see culture re-shaped into the Kingdom of God. It would not be perfect, as we are imperfect people. But it would have a God-like quality about it where people strive for justice, live out kindness and walk humbly with God.

We need to note, however, that Isaiah is not talking about a Christian political power taking over. We should not be fighting for a “Christian” government. There are two reasons (at least) for this. One is that you cannot legislate morality. You can attempt to legislate behavior, but a kingdom lifestyle is not formed by a legislative act. It is formed by an encounter with God. In addition, a “Christian” government does not result the transformation of people. People are only transformed by the power of the Triune God working in their life.

What Isaiah is talking about, and what we need to be striving for, is this: the gospel of Christ, proclaimed in human weakness triumphs over opposition and our timid faith. And it overcome the powers of this world. The growth of the early church was not a result of any kind of power structure. It was a result of humble people living out an authentic love for God and others. They were grounded in God’s love and calling and were freed and empowered to live a radical, audacious faith that was evident among the peoples of the world. In doing so, they transformed the world in which they lived. In that, we can also see the world transformed.

The Theology of Journey

I want to do one last post on the Theology of the Journey. The journey into a deep and powerful Faith in God does something to our theology: it condenses it. That might seem a little strange to say, but I believe it is true. Let me explain more.

During this journey, our theology moves from something that is very black and white to shades of grey. The reason this happens is because so much of what we know about God gets challenged. For instance, we know the promises from scripture about seeking God first and He will provide everything we need. But when you are looking at no money in the checkbook and lots of bills to pay, that belief gets challenged. It’s not as pretty and tidy as we would like for it to be. What if part of this journey means that you have your house foreclosed upon? What if that means you don’t eat for a few days? This is serious stuff that gets challenged in the midst of the journey.

The journey changes our theology because experience may conflict or contradict our interpretation of scripture. It is true that God’s Word never changes. But our understanding of God’s Word does change. For instance, what happens if in the midst of your journey into Faith, you have an experience with ecstatic speech in a biblical manner, something you truly believe ended in the first century? At this point, you have a crisis of Faith. Do you trust the experience, which happened in a biblical manner, or your own interpretation?

When we have experiences similar to this, we learn to hold our interpretation of the scripture loosely. I do not mean that we abandon our beliefs, simply that what may have been black and white becomes grey because our experience with the Word has changed. We have a humble theology. It’s humble orthodoxy.

The Word becomes more relational than propositional. This is a huge transition. The scriptures are inherently relational, not propositional. In fact, Truth is relational, not propositional. Jesus said that He was the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to know the truth apart from relationship. In addition, when Jesus states that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, He had already announced that He was the truth. In addition, “knowing” is a word that indicates intimacy, as in a man knowing a woman. It’s a relational word, not an intellectual word. Paul also uses the idea of experiential knowing in Colossians 1:9 “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” The phrase “filled with the knowledge” is to be understood as filled with the experiential knowledge.

When Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12 “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day,” we need to notice Paul did not say, “I know in what I believe…” He notes that he believes in some one, not some thing.

The journey causes us to hold on to a core of our theology. The trinity, the virgin birth, Jesus being the only way to heaven, the death, burial and bodily resurrection…all these things become the core of our Faith. Issues like women pastors, which we may have a developed theological understanding, are not issues in which we argue, get mad, or separate over. The Gospel becomes primary and other issues are not as important. We learn to hold on to orthodox creeds, but all the extra denominational chatter becomes “not so much” important.

This does not suppose a low view of scripture. In fact, it supposes a very high view of scripture and allows us to deal with what appears to be inconsistencies in scripture. What do I mean by that? In Rom 16:7 Paul says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia(s), my compatriots and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to [or prominent among] the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.” There are two major interpretive problems in this verse, both of which involve the identification of Junia(s). (a) Is Junia(s) a man’s name or a woman’s name? (b) What is this individual’s relation to the apostles? Many scholars believe Junia(s) is a woman. The question now requires us to see if Junia is “outstanding among the apostles” or “well known to the apostles.” People get down into the nitty gritty of the Greek, but there is no clear consensus on “among” or “to.” What happens if it is this is a female apostle? How does that affect our understanding of women are not to teach men or women are to keep silent in the church? And how do we reconcile these questions with the reality that Priscilla is most likely the primary teacher of Apollos? We end up having to explain these away in some manner.

In other words, things are not so black and white. They require us to hold our beliefs humbly and loosely. The Journey into Faith allows us to have a grey theology, be in a healthy relationship with others, serve with others, and hold to orthodox conservative theology.

Doctoral Hood

Today my wife and my parents are in Portland, OR for a few days. For the past three years, I have been working on my Doctor of Ministry, Leadership in the Emerging Culture at George Fox Seminary. I was in a cohort led by Dr. Len Sweet which ended with 18 students from various denominations and various parts of the world. It has been a transforming journey.

My work focused on understanding behavioral change through the integration of emerging sciences and theology. I looked at emotional intelligence, neuroplasticity (how the brain functsion and changes), identity, and socialization to understand how we were created, how behavior is formed, how behavior is changed, and the role of the Gospel, the Godhead, and the Church works in it all. It was extremely enlightening.

Tonight, about half of our cohort gets hooded and tomorrow night we graduate.

Out of this work, I’m almost finished with a manuscript for a book that will come out of this research. It’s going to be entitled, Wholly Rewired: Science, the Gospel and the Journey towards Wholeness. I’ve shared parts of this work on this blog over the past couple of years. It will finally be all in one place. I’m extremely happy of the work that I have done.

People call this point in the education process either graduation or commencement. But I have chosen to call it the End of the Beginning. I am finishing one part of my life but beginning another.

I want to thank you for following me on this journey. I hope we’re together for many more years to come. When I return, you can call me Dr. Phillips or just David or Dave. But please don’t call me Dr. Phil!

A picture is worth an emotional experience

I was reading a post from Fast Company Magazine today entitled Three Secrets to Make a Message Go Viral by Dan & Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The article opens with his familiar urban legend:

The police have issued this warning: “If you are driving after dark and see an oncoming car with no headlights on, DO NOT FLASH YOUR LIGHTS AT THEM!” Why? Because the no-headlights car is being driven by a gang member, and as part of an initiation rite, the first person who flashes him will be hunted down and killed. (But at least the gang member will turn his lights on afterward.)

You’ve almost certainly heard that famous urban legend, and most likely, you heard it from someone who swore that it was real. (It’s not. See snopes.com.) This idea is sticky — it’s memorable and may change the way you behave — but it’s also viral. People love to retell it.

The authors asks an important question: Why is the gang-initiation tale so irresistible to pass on? They then provide three ideas for the viral nature of this legend.

It’s emotional — in fact, if you believe it, it’s terrifying. The French psychologist Bernard Rimé has found that people almost compulsively share emotional experiences (both positive and negative), and the more intense the emotion, the more likely they are to talk about it.

There’s another emotional angle: When someone shares this legend with you, they feel like they’re doing a public service. They might believe they’re saving your life. And that’s the second trait of viral ideas. It’s often a small favor: “Hey, it’s Free Breakfast Day at Denny’s!” or “Dude, have you seen the video of that David kid who was drugged up after his dentist visit?” It feels good to save our friends money, or delight them with nitrous-oxide humor.

The third trait of a viral idea is the trigger. A trigger is an environmental reminder to talk about an idea. For instance, a golf tournament is an excuse to trot out your public-service info about the state of Tiger’s knee, and a cup of coffee reminds you to talk about Starbucks’s no-decaf-after-noon policy.

“If you want people to talk about your product or service,” the authors state, “you need to ratchet up one of these three traits.”

What then might make your preaching go viral? If these three ideas are the spark to the viral nature of a product or service, how does that translate to our preaching?

The obvious correlation is to the emotional nature of our preaching. We are primarily emotional people. Brain research over the past two decades has demonstrated that. We connect through emotional experiences, not through rational arguments. In fact, our rational arguments are nothing more than a rationalization of our emotions. We cannot make meaningful decisions or judgments without our emotions in play.

What, then, is the most natural way to connect to someone emotionally? Is it logical arguments with multiple points? No. It is through the use of stories. Pastors need to re-embrace the narrative and storytelling traits of Jesus.

Preaching Like Jesus

Preaching like Jesus means that we use stories. Stories work because they touch people on a number of levels.  They teach, inspire, correct and change people by touching the mind and the heart.  Stories stimulate a person’s senses and help people find themselves in the lives of others.  Stories also create a safe place for people, a place where no one can hurt a person. (1)

Stories are the foundation of the message.  Interaction is what attracts people to the message.  Interaction “is like a baited hook.  It attracts attention, engages, ‘hooks’ and draws people into the message that is being communicated…Great interaction is like ‘word salt’ because it flavors information and makes it taste more palatable and more memorable.” (2)  Jesus used questions and props to interact and teach.

Jesus also made use of multi-track communication. Communication is not simply a matter of the mind and the will, but “an intrinsic convergence of everything we are.  It is made up of what we do, what we say, what we sing, how we feel, what we desire, what we hope and what we dream”.(3)   There are five levels of multi-track communication: physical, emotional, intellectual, intuitive and spiritual.  Jesus used multi-track communication to “expand his communication impact and make it more memorable”. (4)

Jesus was also prepared. Master communicators understand that preparation is the key to successful communication.  But it is not simply the preparation of the message. It also includes the preparation of the person.  Communicating effectively requires preparation in many different areas, including physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.  Jesus prepared his whole life for three short years of ministry.  He also prepared others to lead at his departure.  It was his “preparation and discipline” that “established the platform from which he launched history’s most transformational marketing campaign.”(5)

The fifth characteristic of Jesus’ communication is love. Love is the heart and soul of communication.  It is communication’s core.  “Master Communicators help us discover love because they help us discover ourselves.  They hold up a mirror of truth to our lives and help us to see the truth of our hearts.” (6)   Because Jesus was love, he taught, spoke, modeled and lived love and that made his communication life-giving. (7)

The final technique or characteristic of Jesus’ communication, according to Scarborough, is execution. She states, “[e]xecution is critical.  It requires energy, precision, commitment, and accurate focus.  Jesus reached his goals because he executed and hit the target whenever he communicated.  His examples were clear, his questions concise, and his responses precise.  He never let others pull him off track with their personal agendas and schedules.” (8)

Preaching like Jesus integrates stories which produce emotions that cause our communication to go viral. But the key to stories is our ability to create visual imagery. We need to create verbal, visual imagery with our preaching. This sparks the emotions, which can enable our preaching to go viral.

Why is imagery so important?

Meaning is a function of comprehension and comprehension is a function of the visual. By far, the most dominant learning mode is visual experience. (9) Researcher Stephen Pinker has determined that four different formats are used by the brain in representing thought. These formats are: a) the visual image as a two dimensional picture-like mosaic; b) a phonological [sound] representation; c) grammatical representations of different parts of speech arranged in hierarchical trees; and d) “mentalese, the language of thought to which our conceptual knowledge is couched.” (10) Pinker goes on to state that “[m]ental imagery is the engine that drives our thinking about objects in space…Images drive the emotions as well as the intellect.” (11) Cognitive psychologist Howard Garner suggests that the reason images are primary, especially in the creative mind, is that they allow a person to understand one idea through another idea. (12) It is also the format for all consciousness and all meaning and the basic communication medium for the brain. “When what we read, what we hear, and what we see reach the level of ideas, they all appear in a different format: the format of neural imagery.”(12)

As such, reason is not particularly effective in addressing learning or behavior. “In the process of our becoming, visual communication plays a crucial role, one that is particularly vulnerable to emotional learning and to manipulation by political, economic and other vested interests.” (13) Damasio remarks that “[v]irtually every image, actually perceived or recalled is accompanied by some reaction from the apparatus of emotion” and because “the engines of reason still require emotion…the controlling power of reason is often modest.” (14) The brain forms attitudes and ideas neurologically through pattern formation and repetition. These patterns create the templates used to map and anticipate reality. Because neurons that fire together get wired together, the templates are particularly resistant to reason. (15)

Let’s Review

Emotional engagement is the key to viral marketing. Emotions are best engaged through the use of stories. They are are also best communicated through the use of images. The study of signs and images as the means of meaning and communication is called Semiotics. Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. (17)

So maybe to make our preaching move through our community of faith and their social networks, we need to become expert semioticians. It is how Jesus communicated (The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…). He used verbal imagery to move people’s emotions and minds into life change.

This will scare many strong, conservative, anti-postmodern thinkers because postmodernity relishes the realm of semiotics. Maybe it is time we embraced postmodernity rather than reject it without an understanding of what it is or its effectiveness in communicating the Gospel.

Notes:

(1) Lynn Wilford Scarborough, Talk Like Jesus (Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2007), 74-75.
(2) Ibid, 95.
(3) Ibid, 119.
(4) Ibid, 117.
(5) Ibid, 139.
(6) Ibid, 164.
(7) Ibid, 163.
(8) Ibid, 185.

(9) Ken Smith, Handbook of Visual Communication Research: Theory, Methods, and Media, Lea’s Communication Series (Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum, 2005), 46.
(10) Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: Norton, 1997), 89-90.
(11) Ibid, 284-285.
(12) Smith, 53.
(13) Ibid.
(14) Ibid, 60-61.
(15) Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, 1st ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), 58.
(16) Smith, 61.

(17) Wikipedia contributors, “Semiotics,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semiotics&oldid=285248604 (accessed April 22, 2009).

Journeying Into Faith

Reading through books of Moses (Genesis to Deuteronomy), we see how God led the people of Israel on their journey into the Promise Land. That journey mirrors much of our journey into faith. It is a journey into the depths of a relationship with God. In this post, I want to examine how God guided the nation, how they followed, and how that carries over into the journey God has in store for us.

1. The Israelites were led by the visible God
Scripture tells us that God led the nation through two visible signs. During the day, a cloud would lead them and during the evening journeys a pillar of fire would go before them. When God decided to stop, the cloud would stop and the people would settle in for an undetermined period of time. During this time the tabernacle would be assembled and the cloud would hover over the dwelling place of God. When it was time for the journey to continue, the cloud would rise, at which time the people would pack up the tabernacle and their own possessions and be prepared for the cloud to lead them through the next part of the journey.

2. The Disciples were led by the visible Son
God, live and in the flesh, led the disciples for three years. Each day Jesus would hear from God and the journey would begin anew. He took them from one end of Judah to the other, through Samaria, around and back again as He journeyed to the cross. The disciples did not know where the journey would lead from one day to the next. Rather, it was a dependance on God the Son each day.

Jesus told Thomas something fascinating post-resurrection. “Thomas”, Jesus said, “it is great that you see and believe. But what’s better will be all those who do not see yet still believe.” A few days later, Jesus ascends. A few days later we read about Pentecost.

3. Christ Followers are led by the invisible Spirit
From the ascension of Jesus until today, followers of Christ (people who do not see but still believe) have been led by the invisible Holy Spirit. That just doesn’t seem fair does it? Well, maybe not, but at least we don’t have to wait centuries between God speaking into our lives.

The difference between God leading visibly (as in the case of the nation and the disciples) and invisibly as He leads Christ-followers is that the visible God was external to the people whereas the invisible Spirit resides within each follower of Christ. The visible is not as important in our case because the invisible is always there, prompting us, teaching us and leading us.

However, there is a similarity between the Israelites after the construction of the Temple and today’s Christ-followers. During that time, the nation heard from God through dreams, visions, natural disasters, war and slavery. They also had prophets who themselves heard from God and spoke that word to the people. He even spoke in a still, small voice and through a donkey. Post-Pentecost, we see something similar. God spoke to people through visions, trances, and dreams (Acts 10:3-16), He spoke though prison sentences, an inner voice (Acts 16:1-10) and visitations from God or his messengers (Acts 23:11). Despite the invisible nature of God, he still leads experientially. Guidance is done through encounters.

Faith Markers
Along the journey through the desert, God provides faith markers to the nation to show them that not only was He still around, but He was listening and He was providing all of their needs. Whether it was manna for food or water to drink or forty years in the desert without the need for new clothes or shoes, God took care of them one day at a time.

For post-Pentecost Christians, God provides us with faith markers as well. Several years ago, during my senior year in college, I came home from the morning service, which has been quite inspiring, and sat down in my “thinking chair,” at the time it was a dirty yellow queen anne chair. It has since been re-covered and it is still my thinking chair. I put on some classical music and just closed my eyes and quieted my mind. While it wasn’t audible, it was loud in my spirit. God posed to me a question: “David, what do you want?” Without hesitating, I told God three things that I truly wanted. And no, they did not include gobs of money, fancy cars, or trivial stuff like that. They were things only God could do. For the next year, God answered each one of those. Two he provided. One he did not. However, for a year I prayed and waited and watched. That period of my life has become a faith marker. When I struggle with God and where He is leading me, or when He seems silent and far off, I go back to that period in my life and, in the words of Rich Mullins, it keeps “giving me hope to carry on.”

Those faith markers are emotional connecting points that are important in following God on this journey into faith. They are important reminders of how God has provided in the past. They keep us going as He takes us deeper into faith, particularly because He will take us through deserts where we walk into a fierce sandstorm that tests our dependence and obedience upon God.

The Goal
As I read the story of the Israelites, the disciples time with Jesus and examine my own life experience with God, I notice something important about God’s goal in how He leads us. His goal is day-by-day leadership.

If you notice how He guided the nation, they had to be ready at a moments notice to pack up and move. They could not plan into the future. They would wake up each morning knowing that today might be the day for transition. Tomorrow was never really planned. The disciples experienced the same kind of guidance. They woke up each morning not knowing what the day would bring, where they would journey next, or who they would encounter. Each day was a day of the unknown.

The past two years of my life have been a period where I longed to see God move and work. But all I have heard is silence. With me wanting to know where and when and to what God may lead us, God has chosen to rest us right where we are. There has come a point in this two year journey that I transitioned from wanting to know five years out, two years out, even a year out what God would have us do to waking up each day and asking God what He had in store for me today.

I keep going back to the Lord’s prayer quite often. There’s that part of the prayer where Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread…” I paraphrase this verse according to what I believe is its intended meaning: “Give me today what I need for today and tomorrow I will come back to you and ask you again.”

The goal of the journey into faith is a total day-by-day, moment-by-moment dependence on the leadership and guidance of God. For a society enamored by goals and plans, this causes us discomfort. But the truth is, every morning we wake up to could be a day of transition. It could be the day that a loved one dies or a home is destroyed or a job is lost. It could be the day that brings great news, notice of a new job, or a move across the country. We are not promised the next second, much less the next day, month or year. We need to anticipate that each moment is a moment of transition and change.

That sometimes means God becomes silent for a period of time. That period of time can be so quiet that it screams at us, a period of time that St. John of the Cross calls the dark night of the soul. We so long for God to speak, to give us any light at the end of the tunnel (even if it is a train) that we spend every available moment crying out to Him. His silence is both exhausting and thirst-creating, so much in fact that we keep coming back for more. In doing so, He is removing our own self-reliance and developing our God-dependence. As much as we have tried to lead ourselves by our dreams, goals, and desires, we fall before Him to wake up each morning asking Him what He wants us to do today.

There comes a point in time, and it is different for each person, that this day-by-day dependence becomes our dearest friend instead of worst enemy. We learn to embrace it. We look forward to what God will provide for us today.