Monday, January 22, 2007

thoughts on the tree

I wrote the bit about the tree at a praise and worship deal. Brent wanted to go because his favorite worship leaders were going to be leading it off, and I wanted to go with Brent.

So, the inspiration for this was a conversation I had with God during some of their rather free-flowing music. The conversation was specific to that event so it doesn't bear repeating.

I've thought a lot about what I wrote here since then. It's not very moving. It's interesting, it's kind of mysterious, but it's not very moving, and there's a good reason why not. The reason is because there's no crisis, no fall, nothing lost, no hero to rise up against the antagonist and against his gathering antikingdom, no risk, no quest, no trials, no rescue, no battle, and most of all—no romance.

The bad thing is, this is more or less the picture of the afterlife I was given. Actually, this picture is a little more exciting than the picture of the afterlife I was given—the endless choir practice in the sky interspersed with “drop and give me twenty-four” style worship on cue.

I was talking about this with Bobby lately, about how the picture of the afterlife we’ve been sold is this endless flowering happiness at the end of the story, and he said he wasn’t really excited about the afterlife because of that. If that’s really what it is, then I’m not either.

But I wonder if “happily ever after” is really just sitting around singing worship tunes in our robes, strumming our harps (or even our electric guitars), while we float from cloud to cloud smiling softly at everyone we meet, holding hands and singing kumbaya.

According to Jesus there’s no sex in heaven. According to C.S. Lewis that’s because there’s something way better. I don’t know. I just hope there’s battles to fight (against real enemies), adventures to live (with real risk), and beauties to rescue (at real cost with real effect). Basically, I hope there’s story. I not only cannot imagine a reality without story, I rather think I am made for story. And because of that, I think that a place without story would not be enjoyable at all. And I wonder if it could even be real.

Jesus told several parables that seem to address the afterlife. Most have to do with dinner parties. But in the ones about the talents and the separating of sheep and goats, the reward for the faithful ones is a kingdom to reign in. Maybe that’s all part of it. Maybe the afterlife is not just one scene, but thousands, millions. Maybe, like a good story, they all happen at the same time and intersect dramatically, or else they unfold over time like the one we’re in now.

Finally, Mr. Incredible once said, “For once can’t the world just stay saved?!” I don’t think it can. And I think if it did we would all be very bored.

27 comments:

John Three Thirty said...

I was gonna comment on the tree post, "um, where's the bad stuff", but your mentioning the tree/garden tied to that concert you went to...yeah. I'm real glad I wasn't in town for that one.

While you're off doing SCA stuff in heaven, I'll either be over on the golf course or flying supersonic planes around. That is, of course, unless we have built-in supersonic jet-packs in our new bodies...

Steve Coan said...

You know, I have a hard time imagining technology in the after-life. Machines.

Maybe it's because Jesus just "ascended" without a jet pack. Or maybe it's because of all the imagery in the (pre-modern) Bible. Or maybe it's because machine is the successor of magic.

I don't know. I just have this sense that we won't need a machine to move a mountain "anew in the kingdom". Instead we will just tell it to move.

Still, is the afterlife really "boy friendly" without explosives?

John Three Thirty said...

have long lamented that people have more belief in the 'magic' of Harry Potter than believe in God's power...

machines are to magic as medicines are to healing. God, thanks but You're not needed, we got it taken care of.

Steve Coan said...

Good analogy.

The machine/magic connection runs even deeper than that, though. The word machine is etymologically derived from word magic, and for good reason. Modern machine wielders are functionally equivalent to ancient magicians, and in some cases are exactly equivalent. Much of the old magic was not supernatural at all, but rather was intelligent people creating contraptions that did amazing things, sometimes to deceive the masses, sometimes not, but always to give one man power over others. C.S. Lewis talked about it in The Abolition of Man.

The thing is that we convince ourselves that building machines is our way to have power over nature (which in itself would be a misstep to my way of thinking), but really it's a cover for overpowering other men. Airplanes, for example, ultimately do not give mankind power over nature. They give some men power over other men. The ones who have them have the power. Of course I mean men/women.

It's hard for me to picture a kingdom of God where we still race to invent stuff before other people do so that we can squeeze them for cash or favors. But at the same time, it's hard for me to picture any reality at all where everything is free and comes easy.

Hmm.

MJ said...

I don't think we have concepts or words for it, which is why Jesus didn't try very hard to describe it to us while he was here. I can't, however, imagine anthing of God not having a story and being utterly anticlimactic. It would just be a very "un-him" thing to do IMO.

I wonder if we will even have desires at all. I think desires for really anything are very earthly. They imply need. Can you even imagine an existance devoid of need? I can't even conceptualize such a thing. But I think need will exist in heaven.

Clearly we know it will have some level of heirarchy because some people will have stored more treasure there than others and some will be given more authority there than others. But I think the problem is trying to conceptualize something that couldn't be more inconcievable to the human mind.

For better or worse our understandings of everything are rooted in our paradigms and our life experiences. See that you can't even talk about heaven without comparing to some sort of Earthly experience...how we will or won't move there as compared to here, etc. Buzz Lightyear says "to infinity and beyond" ...I would say heaven is beyond what we can even concieve.

MJ said...

I meant to say I don't think need will exist in heaven. I think faster than I type.

Steve Coan said...

I'm still thinking about this comment.

One thing I think worth clarifying is that we use the word want rather liberally. Want clearly implies lack, whereas would doesn't. Will doesn't either, and this is usually the word ascribed to God in the Bible anyway. Jesus' question was "What will my Father?" or "What is my Father's will?"

But we (myself included) use the word "want" for everything, and would sound archaic if not arcane otherwise. "What do you want me to do?" is much more colloquial than, "What would you have me do?" and much more than "What will you that I do?"

So we use want for everything, even God. For example, we might even say, "What does God want?" And someone might answer, "Righteousness" or "Goodness". But I don't think God wants anything. But that's not to say the he doesn't desire. Even though God doesn't want for anything, he clearly doesn't have everything as He would. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There are clearly things God will have in the earth, and this is what Jesus came to do.

All that to say, I'm still chewing on this idea, and I have to make sure I don't get stuck in semantics.

Is there need in the afterlife? Is there story? Can there be story without need? without desire?

MJ said...

Well I f God can desire without need, wouldn't it make sense that in heaven we would have desire without need. I mean on Earth, here and now, as I grow in Christ I am learning to get loosed of need to recieve from people...that doesn't mean there are not things I desire. Maybe life on Earth is a journey away from need and into desire. But I don't know what good it does even to speculate.

John Three Thirty said...

I've never read Lewis' book on technology, but when I speak of zooming around in heaven it is not lack or needs based pondering.

I speak rather from enjoyment, from both real and surreal experiences.

I have enjoyed parasailing and roller coasters in this life. Moreso, though, I see and experience God's magic on an intermittent basis in ways that most Followers disbelieve. I've experienced it in integrated form time and time again.

There are some secrets to God's magic that many don't know, nor care to know. There are also those, Christians and non, who explain it away. So be it.

I know what I unequivocally see and have seen. It is beyond human explanation and human capacity.

When Jesus says "there will be some who will not believe, even if someone be raised from the dead", He ain't kidding. I've seen people who deny substantial magic of the God kind right before their very eyes.

And then there are others who would only believe if the sentence begins with "I once heard of a missionary in Africa who..."

Sad in one respect, sure, but it doesn't inhibit God from showing up.

He's a gentleman, Who doesn't force His type of magic on anyone.

MJ said...

So the Bible says that Adam and Eve brought death into the world through sin. So we wouldn't have to experience death if they didn't sin, right? Does that mean that we wouldn't get to experience heaven if we didn't sin?

Steve Coan said...

I thought we were talking about the afterlife, not heaven.

MJ said...

Can you clarify? What do you think the difference is? So I can understand what you mean better. No sense talking about two different things without knowing that we're talking about two different things.

MJ said...

"Can there be story without need?"

Well Isn't Jesus' story a story without need?

MJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MJ said...

I mean in the sense that he didn't have any

John Three Thirty said...

Sinless and perfect are two different things.

Jesus was not perfect, or perhaps better said perfected, until He died on the cross.

But He was sinless all along.

Supra-deification of Jesus (while on earth) is a common stumbling block.

John Three Thirty said...

I was reading Mark this morning and am seeing Jesus' having need(s) left and right.

John Three Thirty said...

to elaborate, Mark mentions several times how rabid the crowds are around Jesus. He's in a house that is so packed that no one else can get in. Later, Jesus tells His sidekicks to have a small boat always at the ready, in case He needs to get into it and push off shore. Mark says this is because the crowds pressed in so hard against Jesus there was a chance He could get crushed to death.

Then later Jesus heals a guy and very strongly and in no uncertain terms tells the dude not to tell anyone about it.

The guy does anyway, and as a result Jesus is restricted to staying outside of towns in the desert. He can't stay in towns for basic amenities because this dude totally dissed Him.

This also makes me think of the book of John, where throughout the entire book Jesus is continuously frustrated by His disciples: "don't you get it?", "how much longer must I put up with you?", etc.

In one of the early chapters of Luke, Jesus is about to heal the dude with the withered hand. It says he asked if it was right to do good on the Sabbath or not. No one said a word. It then says Jesus looked around those gathered there "with vexation and anger", then turned to the man and said "Stretch out your hand!"

There's a facade, I think, in America which trumps Jesus as this unaffected, positive dude who walks around with nothing but a shit eatin' grin on His face the whole time. (It's the same face seen in the hallways and pulpits of churches every Sunday.)

Maybe it's just me, but I continually see frustrating circumstances for Jesus when i read the accounts, mixed in right along there with the healings and deliverances.

If He got bludgeoned to hamburger meat with the intent that I be happy or positive, then I am most definitely embracing the wrong religion.

Steve Coan said...

Back to the question about the difference in the afterlife and heaven...

The heaven Jesus talked about is not something you go to, but something that comes to you. And he didn't talk about people entering into it or being offered it when they die. For Jesus it was now or never. Heaven was something plain that Jesus expected the willing to see and to enter.

The afterlife, on the other hand, is a whole nother story. The afterlife is, well, the after life. And whatever else can be said about it, it’s not now, it’s after. So it can’t be the same as heaven, which is now.

So, how do you compare heaven and afterlife?

MJ said...

What I mean to say is that Jesus was entirely self posessed. He didn't feel the needs that we do to recieve affection, understanding, appreaciation, care, etc...Not to say he didn't want those things, but getting that did not govern his behavior. He did right in every situation without needing approval or understanding from others.

If people treated him like crap, he just left. He was in such deep communion with his father that he could field people disagreeing, not understanding, yelling at him, trying to stone him...and still be decent and not get nasty. The few times Jesus did get mad it was more at groups, collectives, rather than particular individuals. Even Judas, he could calmly sit across knowing what he would do. Jesus still conducted himself rightly in the presence of the worst sort of betrayer.

So when I say not having need, what I mean to say is that his love and behavior are completely not contingent on us meeting his "needs". He could sit across from Judas and very calmly discuss what he was going to do...and not flinch or show anger. He could just accept people because he didn't need them to be anything for him. He was filled from higher, holier sources.

It is my belief that that life in Christ is a journey into the ability to do the same. That we are to be able to put down human relational needs in order to put on Christ and love when people don't deserve it and accept things that are terribly painful without being depleted.

I have two very close friends with terrible marital situations, obscenely awful. I have to remain through that with them and the only way that I do not get completely discouraged is to divorce myself from needing a "good outcome," Needing to fix or change the situation for them. I hate what I see. I hate it. But I go to dinner at their houses and we hang out with their husbands and them and just try and be love to all parties without needing things to be different than what they are. I say things to them about what I think they should do, but my love for them can not be contingent on them doing it, or coming to church with me, or needing their approval at all if I am to bring Christ there. Sometimes I have to tell them things they don't like hearing about themselves and I have to not be bound by the fact that they may withdraw from me if I do. I can't let fear of rejection keep me from speaking the truth....I have to not need anything from them to really be able to love them.

So when I say he doesn't "need", what I mean to say is that his actions are not governed by relational needs. He is right, true north always, no matter what.

Jesus is not moved from the point of righteousness by our behaviors, opinions, attitudes, or understandings. He is centered and balanced always. Unlike we who are pulled all over the place by worry about what people think, fear of loss, grief over our past, and all sorts of stuff that we go through.

Jesus didn't have anything to prove. He didn't need us to get it. He just did right and continued doing right no matter what the reaction. His basic most fundamental need was to do his father's will. So that's what I meant be not having "need".

MJ said...

I guess what I was pondering about the afterlife is the possibility that we acted like complete trash and, through Christ, God would give us something better even than what we would have initially had. What do you think of that?

Steve Coan said...

What I'm thinking is that somewhere the idea of heaven got mixed up with the idea of pure bliss.

Heaven is not the fulfillment of all my desires. Heaven is the unseen part of reality. It has a rhythm to it, an essence, but it is formless and void. We have the very power to lay hold of heaven and incarnate it, just like Jesus did, if we too will get in step with God.

There is a lot to be speculated about the afterlife, and I do think that there is a future hope of some kind of realiztion, whether it is a recompense or reward or fulfillment, pleasant surprise or sudden death, or something else. But it's just odd that people started calling it heaven. Heaven is the thing Jesus kept teaching about, expecting people to see and enter into, so that the world would be a better place, where the dwelling of God is with men.

Steve Coan said...

Yes, I totally get what you are saying about Jesus and need, MJ. It's like Jesus didn't have a reactionary bone in his body. He didn't respond to people, but rather was himself and let/made other people respond to him.

   Jesus didn't have anything to prove.

Those words probably define Jesus better than any others could. Maybe that was the very essence of the Christ.

So the question is, how would you live if you had nothing to prove? And would the world be a better place if more people had nothing to prove?

The one thing I would say different than you in your conclusion is, "He just was right and continued doing good no matter what the reaction."

He had no interest in doing the right thing. He had nothing to prove. He devoted himself to doing good.

MJ said...

Yeah you are right about him being right. That is more what I meant.

I am starting to live like I have nothing to prove...Judgmental people are very averse to you, which is really quite pleasant. Nothing like good ole pharisee repellant...non-aerosal of course. It's easier to be happy when you have an audience of one and you know he likes you no matter what.

I once heard a Sermon by Creflo Dollar, of all people, comparing Mohammed and Jesus. He said Mohammed was after wealth and power. What is Jesus after?

As far as heaven...yeah I got you. Maybe the way you get to heaven is by having nothing to prove.

Steve Coan said...

The audience of One idea is so powerful. I think a lot of people say they have an audience of One, but maybe it's a cover up. Or a bit of self-deception. Because the second thing you said about Jesus is maybe the most important part. Jesus had an audience of One, and that One already expressed his pleasure and confidence in Him. So when Jesus lived, it was from a center of affirmation and security. He didn't live his life to answer a question. The question had already been answered. Nothing to prove.

Steve Coan said...

Aha!

That may be the big difference in this life and the afterlife.

afterlife n. The state of being in which
    there is nothing to prove.


Maybe we confuse having a story with having something to prove because that's our context. In all the stories we know (or in other words: in our story) it seems like there is always something to prove. But something to prove doesn't mean something to fight for or seek or risk. You could seek something or fight for something or risk something without having to also prove something.

MJ said...

" I think a lot of people say they have an audience of One, but maybe it's a cover up."

I can't understand why anyone would want to live any other way...It's sooooooooo much easier to deal with other humans like that.

It's so hard to lay all that "what are people going to say crap" aside. I don't know why, but I have never really struggled with that. I guess I had to see such yuck behavior from other humans early on. They lost credibility for me. I mean that's the big thing...Who do you give credibility to? That kinda determines your audience.

This song is resonating with me. It's in my heart and has found my voice. I admit to being a Christina Perry fan. I've been known to...