a third alternative... part 1

As i read through the blogosphere, the text, and the current cultural debates,  i am increasingly aware of the need for a third alternative...a posture that stretches between the either/or duality of modernity and embraces the both/and possibilities of an ancient/future faith. 

While this comment hints at huge theological issues and discussions, this post is meant as a beginning to a long and complicated conversation that needs to occur in a life and community of faith.  Thus, i will start with a simple example...

i am intrigued at the motley crew of disciples that jesus put together, a tax collector, a levite, a fisherman, two sets of brothers, and then, the women, who were not customarily included in male gatherings...and Jesus asked them to eat, sleep, live and serve together...side by side, because of their love for him.  Customarily, a levite would not share a meal with the hypocritical tax collector! and how were they to even begin to have theological discussions when the fishermen, who ideally provided the food and means for the levite priests, according to the law of leviticus, were suddenly closer to the messiah than the priest who historically mediated the interactions between G-d and the Hebrews?!  can you imagine the tension in the room...and this doesn't even account for the presence of women and Jesus' friendship and inclusion of them!

I wonder if the brothers challenged jesus with the words, "it is either him or me..." How would he had responded?  and what if the law abiding levite refused to break bread with the tax collector... what might jseus have said and done, because it is clear that they all remained together in the end.  There was an inclusion that defies logic.  Jesus refused to enter into the either/or mentality and discussions of "who is better, more righteous, more acceptable" and he repeatedly challenged the mores of his religious culture.

Jesus consistently presented a third alternative... a both/and posture of possibilities that no doubt caused friction and tension in the group of men and women closest to him.  I wonder at the conversations and the musing that went on beteen Jesus and his friends, as he tried to introduce them to this new way... the way of love and service and inclusion and embrace....this strange faith that touched lepers, that paused for conversation with men such as nicodemus and the woman caught in adultery, that asked a samaritan woman for water, that taught in the temple with such authority, and at other times asked to be taken away from the crowds that wearied him...

As i read the gospels, i wonder at jesus' refusal to be pinned down and categorized in any camp...his posture of both/and... a third alternative regularly confounded those closest to him, as well as those who were his greatest critics!  this third way is confusing and difficult.  It requires a life of internal communion with Wisdom,  decisions made and a life lived from seeking and heeding the Indwelling Holy Spirit, rather than the rules and laws and concrete understanding that we are often far more comfortable with...It is a new way, a third way... not that of the Hebrews or the Greeks, but the way of Jesus...

Comments

[Wes]

More!

Soon!!

Please!!!

Thank you!!!!!!!

[Wes]

More!

Soon!!

Please!!!

Thank you!!!!!!!

[Wes]

PS...sorry! I got so excited I clicked twice when I should have only clicked once.

[Wes]

PS...sorry! I got so excited I clicked twice when I should have only clicked once.

[Shelley]

I found your blog from happydaydeadfish, and I am resonating, relating and absolutely refreshed by this post. As an evangelical wrestling with emergent questions, it is relief to me that it isn't about either/or. My soul responds to nearly everything I read on the subject of 'emergent churches'--the blogs, the conversations. I'm starving for a new way. Thank you, Thank you for this insight.