I Have Blindspots; Do You?

Future lives in the mind

While we fall from behind

Missing light from the trees

Missing you, look at me

From a thought to a sound

From a fear we expound

Give it life, make it breathe

There is nothing that is as it seems

Everybody talk, and nobody listen

Nobody listen, nobody listen

Everybody talk, and nobody listen

Nobody listen, nobody listen

Nobody Listen, Lifehouse

I've been thinking recently about why it is that conversation seems less and less possible among people with opposing opinions.  Have you noticed the same thing? - that it is less and less possible to have an adult conversation with someone who disagrees with you?  I have.  And it seems that the reason is that conversation by nature means movement -- movement toward a conclusion, one way or another.  If people have opposing views, there's a chance that the conversation is going to mean one person is wrong and the other is right.  But there's only a chance of this.  It could be that there is some truth in one person's view, as well as in the other's, and that the overall, most consistent truth is combining both and keeping the most consistent elements (the most likely answer most of the time).  

But movement toward a conclusion like this, via rational conversation, is less and less possible.  And I'm convinced that a major reason (if not the major reason) is one word: Fear.  People are afraid of the feeling of wrongness.  If wrong, they've lost their whole identity, and are all together worthless to the other person and to onlookers.  After all, who am I if someone sees my faults?  (Little do most of us know that everyone else sees our faults all the time, regardless of how hard we work to cover them up).  

As a Christian pastor, I look at the issue I'm describing (an issue from which I am not exempt), and I think it has to do with separation from God.  Because men and women don't have peace with their Creator, they are living life all alone, to fend for their peace by standing up for their principles and standing against those who oppose them.  "Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything," is the sentiment that's been knocked around for years, which sounds good.  The problem is, do we just stand for something, or do we stand for a particular thing?  And if so, what is it?

Jesus can help, because His Word says, "Let every person be quick to hear and slow to speak" (James 1:19).  It appears that the Bible is here telling Christians that their character should include a desire and practice of going to pains to hear people out.  Note that it doesn't say -- nor have I said in this post thus far, and won't -- that truth is relative and Christians should accept some sort of vague nebulous post-modern view of truth which is subject to culture's whims.  But rather, it appears from the sweep of the New Testament that since Christians' standing is unshakably on truth embodied in a Person (Christ the Truth, John 14:6), they can then have open ears to listen up and hear what their neighbors have to say, without fear of looking a fool.

Perhaps the reason is because the Christian isn't so proud that they're unwilling to admit they have blindspots.  Rather, they admit they might.  Truth, by nature, is God's.  And He gives us rebirth through the truth (James 1:18).  Perhaps there is truth in whatever cultural conversation of which we're a part that we're simply missing.  Taking up the cross sometimes means saying to our neighbor, "Help me understand where you're at.  I'm all ears." 

Jesus never acted like that because He didn't have to.  He knew all things about all men.  At several points in his ministry social situations came up with obvious controversial answers, and he was always willing to simply tell the truth.  Yet He never burdened people with unneeded burdens -- He was humbly, gentle, and kind, with an easy yoke and a light burden.  But it was because He knew the truth.  For us, sometimes we need to listen to our opponents to get a better grasp on the truth, so that later we can be better ambassadors for the truth.

Let's start a movement of blind-spot owning, ears-open, I'll-hear-you-out-first-if-you'll-hear-me-out-second action.  But the only way will be if we ask God to help us.  Because only if our confidence is in His power will we fight the temptation to let our confidence rest in our ability to argue better.

You Must Carry the Burden

I've recently been reading Pilgrim's Progress for the first time.  Only being 30 pages in, I'm wishing I would have read it a long time ago.

Christian is a person on a long journey with a heavy burden on his back (symbolic of the cross), sure that one day he'll be able to set the burden down and live in joy for forever.  Along the journey he is often tempted to take sidesteps that make the burden easier.

At one point he begins a conversation on the road with a man named Worldly Wisdom, who tells him that he can't enjoy the benefits of God's blessing until he sets his burden down.  Worldly Wisdom tells him that God doesn't want him to carry the burden.  Then he begins telling him of a town where he can go for relief.  The town is called Morality, where Christian is to look for a "very judicious man" named Legality, who will help, as well as his son Civility.  These two men will help ease the burden of the cross.

As he begins journeying toward Morality to find these two men who can help, the hill up to the town is too daunting to imagine traversing (symbolic of the Law).  So eventually he runs into Evangelist, who first gave him the message and the promise of joy, along with the accompanying burden.  Evangelist asks Christian, "How is it that thou art so quickly turned aside?"  As Christian tells Evangelist what has happened, the latter reminds the former that the righteous live by faith, and that all Worldly Wisdom is interested in is saving man from the cross, at the expense of the eternal joy that is awaiting at the end of the road.

In other words, civil religion might make for a world nice neighbors (a true blessing indeed), but it does nothing to save the soul.  The soul is saved through a long journey of taking up the cross and following Jesus, and the reason for the cross is not that God is mean, but that God is kind, and man, being a sinner, must live with the daily honest burden of the gap between true godliness and sin which is without and within.  The cross is a burden not because God makes salvation hard -- but it is because the fallen world and our fallen hearts make it impossible.  But when one puts their hand to the plow, takes up their cross, and follows Jesus, they are on the path to life, sure that it is as much their's already as Jesus is alive and ruling already.  Thus the Christian is the person who boasts only in the cross of Christ, because by it the world has been crucified to them and they to the world (Galatians 6:14).

I for one am praying that our recent social war -- or perhaps it's better to call it an awakening to the social controversy that's been there all along -- will awaken both Christians and non-Christians to the bankruptcy of civil religion, and bring them to the narrow path that leads to life.  My prayer is that believers who have been living in civil religion, just trying to be morally upright, and hoping that that will be enough, will see that the Gospel is much more radical, because indwelling and out-dwelling sin is much more serious and all-encompassing than they thought.  My prayer is also that non-believers will see that true Christianity can save the world, because perhaps what they've known as Christianity this whole time -- social, civil, moral Christianity -- is religion, but not Christ and the power of the Gospel.

To take up the cross and follow Jesus is to say, "The world needs to be saved -- especially me."  It isn't to say, "I'm right, and these people are the problem," or, "The world would be better with my camp, and that camp just needs to change."  That is to set up another Law.  Rather, the problem is inside of each of us, and Jesus came to make a new creation.  And that new creation, until He returns a second time, is marked by a long road, a heavy burden, and a reward of eternal joy.  But one must take up the cross and start walking to even begin.