Saw a shirt in the mall yesterday that read, "Team Jacob." I wonder if they make "Team Indifferent"?
In a rather dismissive way, Kurt Cobain sang, "You know you're right."
And I love the way Dennis Miller used to end his rants back when he was on his game: "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."
We spend a lot of our days trying to be right, some of our days just plain indifferent, and very few of our days admitting we could be wrong. Philosophically speaking, I'm wondering how we get beyond the solipsistic approach by which we measure "right" according to our own experience(s).
I know what it feels like to be right. My Guatemalan coffee tastes great this morning. I'm right about that. At least... right according to my experience.
Let's try that again.
I know what it feels like to be right. When someone picks up a guitar and strums in a certain rhythm from the open G chord to C to D to A minor it sounds like the opening to "Wish You Were Here." I'm right about that. (Kind of... sigh...)
Let's move on.
I know what it feels like to be indifferent. Whether you have long hair or short hair or facial hair, a tattoo, earrings, piercings, or even if you work for the IRS, such things do not impact the way we share with one another in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In my indifference about such things, I know I'm right.
But this business of "being wrong." That's a tough one. I wonder.
Can we grow as Christians/people if we do not occasionally admit wrong?
I believed for a while that my job as a preacher was to get people out of other denominations--("other" meaning "not mine")--and get them to look like me. In order for them to be "right," they need to think like me. The danger of this approach is most apparent when American missionaries go into another country and unwittingly export our own reactionary issues into their cultures. To this day I appreciate Gailyn Van Rheenen for helping me see the pitfall of anthropological transference. (By the way, I just made up that phrase. Pretty cool, huh?)
Example:
I remember interviewing with a church in the early 90s back when we were considering going as missionaries into the recently dismantled Soviet Union. One particular elder was riding the hobby horse of non-instrumental worship. I pushed back a little because I thought my potential comrades' questions would be of a deeper nature. So I asked what I should say if one of the converts read Psalm 150. He yelled at me: "YOU TELL THEM IT WAS NAILED TO THE CROSS!" I backed away slowly from that weekend. Last I checked, it was Jesus who was nailed to the cross. Last I checked, Psalm 150 did not die for my sins. (Sorry. That was a little sarcastic. But I still think he was wrong and I was right.)
Another example:
When I went to Princeton for my first continuing education seminar after graduate school, my eyes were opened to the beauty of other traditions. I was stunned by the ways they celebrated the inbreaking of God into our world. Artwork. Silence. Responsive readings. Were it not for those experiences, things like the Lord's Supper, preaching, and even the way a sanctuary is decorated would have remained limited to my own view. And even though I cannot write about something beyond what I have seen, I know that this past Sunday, Christians gathered in their tribes in the jungles and confessed Jesus as Lord. Chances are good that their worship looked different than ours. But I bet it was good. And I bet it was right. Not because of forms, but because of hearts. Hearts that hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Amos warned some tribes in the past from the mouth of God: "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; I cannot stand your assemblies." (Amos 5:21) And David discovered a path from wrong to right in Psalm 51:
"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise."
Broken spirits and contrite hearts are ones that admit our human weaknesses and failings. We can see where we have been wrong in the past. In retrospect, I think it is easier to see "wrong" in retrospect. But my prayer is that today, beyond the measure of right, better, or superior, we as Christians in the west should at least share a gospel that is at its very core faithful. Not steeped in power or upper hands. Just faithful.
The days of churches tearing down barns and building bigger ones needs to be replaced by incarnational ministry in our neighborhoods and cities that addresses the actual struggles of people's hearts and minds.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
