Claiborne, Poverty and Rest, part I.

I don't know if you had a chance to read my brief 07.09.08 post about Claiborne's book, "Irresistible Revolution," but the short of it is that in that post I said I was "sorting some things out" regarding the content of the book. I'm still sorting. I'm now working through a short reader written by Abraham Kuyper called "The Problem of Poverty." Kuyper was Prime Minister of the Netherlands at the turn of the 19th century and though living a few centuries later, very much a student of Reformer John Calvin. One of Kuyper's key contributions to Christendom was imploring followers of Christ to move beyond merely a privatized "me and Jesus" kind of faith and allow our faith to impact and overflow to "all of life." No wonder Kuyper was very interested in how the impact of faith in Christ, while inclusive of, nonetheless moved beyond "soul-saving" to "community and society rebuilding" (more my summary of Kuyper's thoughts than his own statements).

In the beginning of his address, I was impacted by one of Kuyper's statements connecting the pursuit of wealth to a basic "soul-weariness" (and remember Kuyper is writing over 100 years ago and from the Netherlands, but let's see how relevant his words seem to us today here in the U.S.):

"Standing before the agonizing distress of these times, a distress which at every point is related to the very essence of error and sin, our eye should not be allowed, nor should it be able, to turn away from Christ the Consoler, who assuredly addresses our violently disturbed century with the persistent call of his divine compassion: 'Come to me, wealthiest century in history, which is so deathly weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'"

Church, let's pray for one another. For me personally, I don't know if it is the pursuit of wealth that makes me so weary (I am in vocational ministry, right?), but nonetheless it is the pursuit of certain things the world says I should be seeking after (comfort, safety and security to name a few) that puts my soul in complacency jeopardy.

I was talking to Tanya the other day about the notion of "danger" (I brought up the subject) and of course the topic came up because I am now riding a motorcycle (have about 1200 miles on it this summer). In light of the many warnings and expressions of concern that have come my way as a result of riding a motorcycle, perhaps this is a little too self-justifying, but I said to Tanya, "riding a motorcycle is no more dangerous than living in the suburbs and standing to lose your soul" (if you live in the suburbs, so do I, so don't feel too judged here). By the way, did you hear Ben Loos' Aug. 10th sermon, "The Fight"? Wasn't it really good? especially in the way it addressed some of these things?

Well, I'm kind of all over the place in this post, but remember what I said in the 07.09.08 post? Claiborne's book did something to me, and I'm still trying to sort it out. If I seem a little confused in this post, . . . blame it on Shane Claiborne.