Bible, Improvisation, and New Community

"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Phil 2:1-4). As I write these words, I am watching the Impeachment debate prior to the historic vote to impeach Donald Trump as president. I know many of my friends on the left are convinced that this is the right thing to do. I also know that many Christians on the right solemnly believe this impeachment is a travesty of justice. As I watch the proceedings I am struck by how each side is simply making the same points over and over again, speaking to their respective constituencies, but not speaking to one another. Regardless of what happens tonight, over the next w...

True reconciliation is hard. The past few days I have been talking about Jesus' friendship notions as illustrated by his parable of the Good Samaritan. One of the possibilities I have touched on is that engaging in friendships may be one of the ways in which we bring healing and reconciliation to our racially divided communities. Peter Slade, in his book, Open Friendship in a Closed Society,  studies how the work of Mission Mississippi  (see yesterday's Advent reflection ) encourages racial reconciliation through the formation of friendships in twice weekly prayer breakfasts. He uses the concept of the embrace, developed by the theologian, Miroslav Volf. If you look at the painting of the Good Samaritan by Vincent Van Gogh, you can see the Samaritan helping the wounded wayfarer onto his pack animal. If you look more closely, you can see the wayfarer embracing the Samaritan. In this painting we see an illustration of Volf's concept of the embrace. Reconciliation is har...

I live in Albemarle, North Carolina, a small mill town that has lost most of its manufacturing base, has an aging population, with one of the largest opiod addiction problems in the state. It is probably one of the most racially divided places I have ever lived. Can Jesus' friendship notions address issues of racial division in the contemporary North American context? One of Jesus' most famous parables is that of the Good Samaritan, a story in which the Samaritan comes to the aid of a man who has been wounded and left for dead by robbers on a lonely wilderness road (Luke 10:25-37). The man was not aided by a Levite, or by a priest, who both pass him by. The text is typically interpreted to accentuate the virtue of the Samaritan who helped his neighbor, even though Samaritans were not generally friendly to the Jews. I have a different take about the meaning of the parable, but more about that on a later date... What would it take for us to befriend people who are different tha...

Today is my final day talking about friendship in Plato. Towards the end of the Lysis dialogue, Socrates comes up with his final definition of friendship, "that which is neither good nor bad is friends with the good." He arrives at this definition through logic. It is clear that those who are bad cannot be friends with one another. There is no honor or loyalty among thieves, as we say. Those who are truly good, according to his logic, are already self-sufficient, and have no need of friends or friendship. So the truly good folks don't really need friends. The ones who need friendship are therefore neither bad, nor entirely good. As a teacher, I really like this concept. Those who are forming their identities, forming their sense of self, and their characters, are the ones who seek out mentoring. So in a way, mentoring activity can be described as a kind of friendship. As we move towards advent, who do you think could benefit from your friendship, from your mentoring prese...