Happy St. Patty's Day!

It's St. Patrick's Day. This evokes several different thoughts, emotions, and memories in me, none too strong, but the one that I wish to note here is what I was doing last St. Patrick's Day. Last year I decided to dedicate a whole class to teaching about the western holiday that is St. Patrick's Day. Now when I say a whole class I mean the whole class for every class I taught, thus a total of 11 St. Patty's Day lectures. Slightly painful the 11th time? Yes. As painful as coming up with a new lesson plan? Definitely not that painful. So yeah. It was great though. I am not sure if more than 5 of my 600 students understood what was happening, but, hey, that's ok. And it was really the first time I had really learned in depth the reason why we celebrate this Saint Patrick anyway. Saint Patrick was the real deal when it came to reconciling. A native of Wales he was kidnapped and enslaved for six years, but after escaping and then becoming a follower of Christ he chose to return to Ireland, to the people who had enslaved him, and bring Christ's message of love and reconciliation. Brilliant. I guess that's why they made him a saint. The guy lived a while ago (in the 300s) so some of the other details are disputed, but that act is enough for me. That's a transformative Gospel. And I will drink to that (ok, I won't drink to that because I am at work. Green lattes, maybe?).

All aspects of the Gospel

I went to a membership class at my Church today. It was good. It's kind of weird to think I am in a place in life where I am stepping into membership at a church, but that is a whole other post, which probably won't get written-I am getting older, meh. Anyway. I love my church. It by no means is perfect, but it knows that and it works hard to respond to conviction and live the Gospel out. And that's what it is all about. Living out the Gospel. And I think they get that right. I was reminded as I was listening to Eugene talk about Quest's vision how important it is to take in all parts of the Gospel. Quest breaks it down into four areas: soul, community, social justice, and global presence.

In thinking about my faith journey it is interesting to look back and see how I have come to think more fully in each of these four areas. Being raised in an evangelical protestant Church that was down with Wesley I got a whole lot of the "soul" aspect of the Gospel from ages 0-18. Lots of salvation. A little fire insurance. Not all a bad thing, but incomplete to say the least.

I got to SPU and I started got a good dose of the Gospel in terms of community. I loved it. It was new and fresh and true. It was an expanded, fuller view of something I was already quite sold on. But it was incomplete.

I continued to have this desire to learn more about this Gospel and what it was all about and when I learned that Christ didn't just come to save our souls and have us exist in nice little communities that care for each other, but to also fight injustice to stand up for the oppressed to go out and serve those who have less than us. This Gospel, it is good news for everyone. We are called to be a good gift to all. We are called to take what we have been blessed with and to bless others. To look out and care for others. To work to bring a little equity to the table. To stand up and say the disparity of wealth in our world today is ridiculous. To step out of the collective system that exploits the exploitable and to take a step against it. To do this locally, to do this globally. It's part of the gospel. Christ spends a whole lot of time talking about it. So all that said...

I was reminded today how all of that stuff is the Gospel. It's all part of the Good News that Christ brought when he came as God incarnate. And all four need to be recognized equally so.

But being from an evangelical background and feeling like I have had more of that then the other stuff, I feel like there is a lot more to learn and catch up on. Here is a quote by Douglas Meeks and David Lowes Watson that I read today that deals with all this a bit...

"Only a fraction of our sins are personal. By far the greater part are sins of neglect, sins of default, our social sin, our systemic sin, our economic sin. For these sins Christ died, and continues to die. For these sins Christ atoned, and continues to atone....As long as evangelism presents a gospel centered on the need for personal salvation, individuals will acquire a faith that focuses on maximum benefits with minimal obligations, and we will change the costly work of Christ's atonement into the pragmatic transaction of a salvific contract....The sanctifying grace of God in Jesus Christ is meant not for the sinner but also for a society best by structural sin."

Valued Perspective

I am a big Dietrich Bonhoeffer fan. I love his book Life Together. Letters and Papers is one I have discussed a lot with friends and have every intent of reading myself sometime soon. Here is a quote from Letters and Papers that was featured over on the God's Politics Blog today.

There remains an experience of incomparable value … to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer … to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Letters and Papers from Prison