Gall’s story is a case in point. That fact that it bears re-telling indicates how God moves us out of our comfort zone. In retrospect, or its recounting, it seems obvious that the Church board meeting was not important at all. Scripture is full of stories like that, such as the parable Gall’s story invokes. If listening to Jesus doesn’t move us, if having an experience like Gall’s doesn’t move us, its because we have hearts made of stone and forgetful minds. Liturgy is repetitve because, in the words of a former liturgy prof., we’re all amnesiacs.

This, though, this granting to me of some “mental real estate” as you look at your own world, is a true gift. Thank you for carrying my story with you as you explore your own. I believe that in the end all we really have to offer one another are our prayers and our testimonies, and when a brother “receives” either one, something profound and lasting has been accomplished. Thank you for that.

I’ve been to St. Meinrad’s several times myself - and have a couple of favorite benches beneath the clusters of trees there. I’ll think of you, and pray for you, there as I clean up the yard after last night’s storms here in Indianapolis.

One verse that has reoriented some of my thoughts and misgivings about the whole urban/suburban thing, and the ministry that goes on in each place, has been the passage in James 2 that talks about not giving up the good seat to the rich man with the fine robes and rings on his thumbs when he comes to church. For me the big question is, why — in a world where there was very little economic or political gain to be had from associating with the Christians — would the rich man come to church in the first place?

All I can come up with is that he’d learned that the comforts of his wealth could do nothing to remove the effects of the Fall. He hurt, and he wanted comfort. He needed the Cross. When we give up the good seats to the rich men, or when we level our harsh criticism at the addictions of the suburbs, what we tend to communicate is a challenge of “who are you to complain?” And when we do that, we become an extra obstacle — a fallen, human social barrier — between an isolated person of means, and the Cross that beckons us all.

There is a segregation that exists between urban and suburban ministries, and I think a great deal of the gulf between them has to do with the disrespect shown to the rich man. I think there is just as wrong about the way we don’t preserve the path to the Cross for the affluent as there is wrong with the way we tend to treat the poor as projects or problems to be solved.

I hear you when you talk about how you didn’t cross the bridge between the suburbs and the “urbs” with your youth, and I’m sure there are all sorts of conflicting motivations behind that. But I would bet that even without that cross-cultural experience — and maybe exactly because that cross-cultural experience didn’t happen — the path to the Cross was kept open for the souls in your care.

There are multiple cultures in the Body. And I don’t know that it’s accurate to say that Jesus was “counter-cultural” in his living. The term itself puts the culture at the center, and makes Jesus, and Christianity, a reactionary thing (which leaves it always “chasing cool,” and you can’t ever catch up with cool, or relevant). What I think I see, instead, is a proclamation of a different culture, one not defined over and against any other culture, but one that stands independently, and rests upon the mutually submitted, delighting, perichoretic relationship of the Trinity.

I think there is adventure enough in discovering that culture to keep us busy — and very, very alive. Busy enough, I pray, to make the successes and regrets we feel about the way we dance through the other cultures seem increasingly dull. At least that is what has been happening in me about my time in Denver.

Anyway, I will be praying for you today.

And if you want to add a little extra drive time to your week, let me know — I know a great Ethiopian place not too far from my house.

Pete

Sadly, the same is true for much of Christianity, especially the North American Protestant Evangelical flavor.