Some of us try to confine our Christian identity to what takes place on Sundays. In order to preserve it from contamination from “the world,” we avoid as much as we can conversation beyond polite small talk with the Samaritans. Others of us memorize phrases from Sunday sermons and teaching and then try to insert them into pauses in the conversations or circumstances over the next six days. But it doesn’t take us long to realize that these tactics are unsatisfactory. Or if we don’t realize it, the Samaritans surely do. (pg. 18)
Some of us try to confine our Christian identity to what takes place on Sundays. In order to preserve it from contamination from “the world,” we avoid as much as we can conversation beyond polite small talk with the Samaritans. Others of us memorize phrases from Sunday sermons and teaching and then try to insert them into pauses in the conversations or circumstances over the next six days. But it doesn’t take us long to realize that these tactics are unsatisfactory. Or it we don’t realize it, the Samaritans surely do. pg. 18
Temptations of the flesh, as difficult as they are to resist, are at least easy to detect. Temptations of the spirit usually show up disguised as invitations to virtue.
…and Eugene Peterson is the best guide that I can think of. He has been helping pastors think theologically and prayerfully about their work, their vocations, for some time. This kind of reflection on the pastoral vocation cannot be overdone for those of us who are both called and paid to perform the work of ministry.
What Peterson does best is cut through the trappings of the professionalized ministry and get to the heart of the matter. Here is how he describes the work of the pastor in is book Under the Unpredictable Plant:
What pastors do, or are at least called to do, is really quite simple. We say the word God accurately, so that congregations of Christians can stay in touch with the basic realities of their existence, so they know what is going on. And we say the Name personally, alongside our parishioners in the actual circumstances of their lives, so they will recognize and respond to the God who is both on our side and at our side when it doesn’t seem like it and we don’t feel like it.
Prayer is the most deeply human action in which we can engage. Behavior we have in common with the animals. Thinking we have in common with the angels. But prayer — the attentiveness and responsiveness of the human being before God — this is human. – Eugene Peterson in Under the Predictable Plant
A few years ago, after preaching the first sermon in a series on Genesis, a woman approached me thanking me for teaching through the first few chapters of that book without reference to such things as the age of the earth, evolution or creationism. Her experience with the book of Genesis had primarily been in the realm of such discussions instead of the God’s care for creation and his ongoing mission in the world.
Creation matters deeply. In part because it is God’s. However, it is also important because creation is where God does his work and where we do ours.
Eugene Peterson quotes the inimitable Wendell Berry:
It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools.
The creation deserves to be loved and cared for because it is God’s. It is also the place where we find ourselves participating in God’s work. Peterson continues:
The Christian life is the practice of living in what God has done and is doing. We want to know the origins of things not to satisfy our curiosity about fossils and dinosaurs and the “big bang” but so that we can live out of our origins. We don’t want our lives to be tacked on to something peripheral. We want to live origin-ally, not derivatively. (pg. 54)
In the last post from Christ Plays in 10,000 Places I highlighted a myth that Peterson brings into clear focus. We too often think that the entire Christian life is about the Christian. We are involved to be sure. We are invited to be a part of it, anticipated even. However, the Christian life is about God, it is about Christ and we get in on it via what Peterson calls “prepositional-participation”.
Here is another great myth of American Christianity and one that I must confess I have completely bought into, propagated and now am in repentance over. It is the idea that Christian spirituality can or should be a quick fix. Eugene Peterson says:
This is slow work and cannot be hurried. It is also urgent work and can’t be procrastinated. Life is deteriorating around us at a rapid pace. Life at the center–Gospel life, kingdom life,–is being compromised, distorted, and degraded at an alarming rate. At the North American intersection, slow and urgent are not compatible, they cancel one another out. But in the Christian way, patience and urgency are yoked. Urgent as this is, there is no hurry. There cannot be any hurry. Impatience is antithetical to a congruent life.
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology is one of several efforts by Eugene Peterson, all successful in my opinion, to provoke pastors and all interested Christians to think seriously about our spirituality. I have been reading Peterson since college. The older I get and the longer I work in the pastoral world the more I come to appreciate him, believe what he has to say, and anxiously await his next offering.
We too easily forget that there are forces that influence and shape us in ways that are contrary to Christ. In fact, sometimes these forces come over us concealed as “Christian” or “spiritual”, and we fail to make discern between how God is working and how we would prefer him to.
Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person, it is not about developing a so-called “deeper life.” We are in on it, to be sure. But we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few propositions: God with us (Matt. 1:23), Christ in me (Gal. 2:20), God for us (Rom. 8:31). With .. in … for …: powerful, connecting, relation-forming words, but none of them making us either subject or predicate. We are the tag-end of a prepositional phrase.
So, what do you think of this? There is more to come from Peterson’s book Christ Plays…
BTW, you can see a great interview of him on an older post here. HT to Rustin for this one:
This weekend we are talking about friendship with Christ as expressed in John 15. Jesus calls us “friends”! How much more amazing can it be? This friendship is not something we earned but a gift given. I like the phrase Eugene Peterson uses below:
The gospel, while honoring our experience, doesn’t begin with our experience. We don’t begin a holy life by wanting a holy life, desiring to be good, fulfilled, complete or wanting to be included in the grand scheme of things. We havebeenanticipated, and the way we have been anticipated is by resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection. Living a holy life, the Christian equivalent of revolution, begins with Jesus’ resurrection.
I have lots of favorite people. The three of you who read this blog are at the top!
My bro in law Rustin posted this video on his site. This brief conversation is so rich that I found it worth including at this site as well. It is 28 min long but if you sit through it all I think you will find yourself the richer for it. Eugene Peterson is the author of such books as Under the Predictable Plant, The Jesus Way, Eat this Book and he is the translator/writer of the Bible version The Message. Enjoy…
My (current) favorite Peterson quote: The way of Jesus is always local and ordinary.
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“I shall not find Christ at the end of my journey unless he accompanies me along the way.” - Esther De Waal, Celtic Way of Prayer
“Our chance to be healed comes when the waters of our life are disturbed.” – Elizabeth O’Conner, Call to Commitment
"It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools." - Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community
"It has always been more difficult to come to terms with Jesus as the way than with Jesus as the truth. It is more difficult to realize the ways our thinking and behavior get fused into a life of relational love and adoration with neighbor and God, God and neighbor." - Eugene Peterson, "Christian Century", Nov 29, 2003
"Past is past. Past is not present. Did is not do. Was is not is."
- John Wesley Weasel in Book of the Dun Cowby Walter Wangerin.
Some of us try to confine our Christian identity to what takes place on Sundays. In order to preserve it from contamination from “the world,” we avoid as much as we can conversation beyond polite small talk with the Samaritans. Others of us memorize phrases from Sunday sermons and teaching and then try to insert them into pauses in the conversations or circumstances over the next six days. But it doesn’t take us long to realize that these tactics are unsatisfactory. Or it we don’t realize it, the Samaritans surely do. 
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