One The Peculiar Community

Ain’t that peculiar?

You might even call these people maladjusted. And if you did it would be a compliment. Because they are maladjusted to the ways of this world. Of course, not every Christian is maladjusted in this way, but I think we ought to be. Professor Cornel West put it well when he said, “There have always been Christians who are well-adjusted to greed, well-adjusted to fear, well-adjusted to bigotry. There have always been Christians who are maladjusted to greed, maladjusted to fear, and maladjusted to bigotry.”

Not all Christian are, but all Christians ought to be maladjusted to things like injustice, greed, materialism and racism. Too often we easily become well-adjusted to these things. I know I have. It is easy to become well-adjusted to the culture we live in, the one that uses hate and violence to gain control, the one that treats people as objects for personal gain, the one that winks at immorality.

Dr. West says elsewhere: “It takes courage to ask—how did I become so well-adjusted to injustice? It takes courage to cut against the grain and become non-conformist. It takes courage to wake up and stay awake instead of engaging in complacent slumber. It takes courage to shatter conformity and cowardice.” I agree. It takes courage to live like our peculiar God, to love and forgive the unlovely and the unforgivable. The only way we will ever find this courage is when we discover that we are a community of people who are rooted in another world. That is the subject of chapter two.

One of my favorite stories illustrates an important principle whose application will come back to us over and over again—especially in this book. It involves two of the leading figures in Quaker history: George Fox and William Penn. George Fox (1624-1691) was the founder of the Quakers, a Christian movement, in seventeenth-
century England. Two of the great Quaker contributions are their teaching on pacifism (refusal to use violence) and equality (abolishing class distinction).

William Penn (1644-1718) grew up in the upper class and had the best education available. At the age of twenty-three, Penn became a Quaker, and soon after everything began to change. It was common in Penn’s day to wear a sword, which was not intended to harm anyone but was a sign that the wearer belonged to the upper class. After becoming a Quaker, Penn struggled with whether he should wear the sword. After all, it was a symbol of war as well as class distinction—two things Quakers stood squarely against.

So Penn went to Fox, his mentor, to seek guidance on the matter. “May I continue to wear the sword?” he asked Fox. I would have expected Fox to say, “No, you must get rid of it. Turn it into a plowshare and never wear anything like it again.” Instead, George Fox offered a response that is a touchstone for me in the area of Christian living. He said, “Wear it as long as you can, William, wear it as long as you can.”

Fox was laying out an important principle in the Christian life. When it comes to our practices and behavior, we need to avoid making rules and laws, and trust the leading of the Spirit. Fox did not say, “Don’t wear it,” nor did he say, “It’s all right to wear it.” He trusted that Penn would make the right decision in time. Had Fox given him a command, he would have robbed Penn of the opportunity to listen to the Holy Spirit, and he would have put in place a rigid standard, which almost always leads to later problems.

In a book about how we ought to live, there is always a danger of laying down rules. In this book we will examine the lifestyle choices and practices that some men and women make, which you may find impressive or encouraging. We will look at people and churches whose generosity is impressive, whose forgiveness is amazing and whose witness to nonbelievers is inspiring. Their examples are meant to encourage us, but we must be careful not to make their practices the only way, the right way or even the best way to live as an apprentice of Jesus. For example, I mentioned my friends Matt and Cather-ine, who live with two other couples in a large house. Their frugality and love for their neighborhood is very impressive. But if I were to conclude from their example that true Christians must live communally, I would be misguided. There is a tendency to turn individual, Spirit-led practices into corporate laws.

So I will apply the “Fox principle” a lot in this book. When we raise the issues of how we use our wealth, how we spend our time or what practices might enhance our life with God, and which practices might impede that relationship, we need to remember the wisdom of George Fox. For example, during the course of this book some of you who have financial means may be led to ask, Is it okay for me to drive this car and live in this house? The last thing you should do is answer with a hard-and-fast rule (for example, “no Christian should own a home over $100,000, or drive a car worth more than $20,000”). Instead, we should say, “Live in it and drive it as long as you feel comfortable, as long as you feel no unease in your spirit.”

Some may see this as a cop-out. To be sure, there are some laws that cannot be broken without harm in our lives (such as the Ten Commandments). I would never say to a man who is having an affair, “Continue the affair as long as you feel comfortable.” But when it comes to the many lifestyle questions we face, in terms of what we eat or drink or wear or drive, we need to think sensibly and with an ear to the whisper of the Spirit. The kingdom of God is not about rules, but about the goodness and confidence and laughter we discover when we let the Holy Spirit lead us.

I intend to take the same position as George Fox and the apostle Paul. I will encourage you to come to your own conclusions on these matters, under the leading of the Spirit, and to avoid turning them into laws that all others must obey, or judging those who do not do as you do. Should Christians wear jewelry? Or watch television? Or go to the movies? Or play sports on Sundays? There are good Christian men and women who would answer no to each of these questions, and good Christians who answer yes to them. Just because there is no right or wrong answer for all does not mean they are not worth asking. In fact, I think the process of asking the questions and listening to the Spirit in our individual lives is both necessary and inspiring. We want black and white answers, but often that is just because we are lazy and unwilling to do the challenging work of discernment.

You might have guessed that William Penn gave up wearing the sword, but not right away. That too is instructive. As our narratives and practices change, so do other things in our lives, but not overnight. I would like to think that the young Penn learned a valuable lesson from Fox, one that he would apply many times throughout his life. And it was an amazing life. Penn later came to America and establised Quaker communities, eventually leading the fight against slavery. William Penn was an amazing person in many respects—as a Christian (his book No Cross, No Crown is inspiring) and as a statesman.

An example of how we avoid legalism and license is through the practice of soul-training experiences. These exercises are not laws that bind us, nor are they practices we can neglect if we want to grow in our life with God and with one another. They stretch us and awaken us to the leading of the Spirit without becoming a recipe with a predictable outcome.

There are two essential points in this chapter. The first is that Christians are peculiar. The second is that their peculiarity comes from following their peculiar God. Put another way, as we spend time with this peculiar God, we will become more and more peculiar ourselves. But this will not happen without our cooperation. For this reason I am asking you to do two things this week:
(1) spend time with God and (2) do some peculiar things. Remember, peculiar is not bad, just something different from what our culture is used to seeing.

This week I would like you to wed contemplation with action, personal piety with social justice. We need to keep a balance between spending time with God and caring for others. To lose one or the other is a common, but deadly, mistake. As a way of staying balanced, I would like you to do two things: spend two hours focused on God
and do four intentional acts of peculiarity. I call it “two-by-four”: two hours with God and four acts of kindness. I will offer some guidance about how to spend the two hours, and I will suggest some things you might want to do in terms of helping others.

Some of you are probably intimidated by spending two hours with God, and others are thinking, That’s it—only two hours? After a lot of interaction with people and careful reflection, I think this is a very attainable amount of time. It is neither too much nor too little. Of course, the two hours is a suggestion, not a law. It is something to aim for, but not something to make you feel either proud because you did it or guilty because you did not. Let me explain why I think it is attainable, and offer some guidance about how to spend that time with God.

First, the two hours do not have to be done all at once. I would recommend thirty minutes on four separate occasions. (Some may spend eight times of fifteen minutes. Others may want to spend two one-hour sessions with God.)

Second, corporate worship (going to church) can also count for one of your hours, but only if you go to church with a sense that you are meeting God, that your focus is on God. Too often we spend much of our time in church services thinking about things other than God. Here are some tips for how to go to church well:

So, you may want to go to church and then schedule one or more blocks of time when you will give your attention to God.

The final exercise in the second book in this series, The Good and Beautiful Life, is about how to spend a day devotionally, with guidance from Madame Guyon. Keying off of her ideas, I offer the following suggestions for other ways to spend time with God. The following steps are offered not as rigid rules but as suggestions.

1. Find a quiet, restful place to be alone. It should be a place where you feel comfortable and are relatively free from interruptions.

2. Breathe. It takes time to become “present where we are.” One of the things I like to do is simply breathe and pay attention to my breathing. It calms me and helps me focus. Sometimes I actually count my breaths and have found that somewhere around forty I am in a relaxed but concentrated state.

3. Say a prayer. I like to pray the Lord’s Prayer or the doxology. The main thing is to remember that you are in the presence of God.

4. Praise. I like the phrase God inhabits the praises of his people. Take a little time to write out a list of your blessings (you may have completed an exercise like this in The Good and Beautiful God). Then thank God for them. Expect to feel a lift in your spirit.

5. Read reflectively. You might want to open your Bible and read a short passage. I suggest no more than four or five verses. The Psalms or the Gospels are good places to start. Others find a daily devotional helpful. I like reading a short passage from The Imitation of Christ.

6. Ponder. Spend some time thinking about what you have just read. Is there a message for you in it? What might God be saying to you in that passage or selection?

7. Ask and listen. Don’t be afraid to speak to God directly. Ask God any questions you have. But don’t expect an audible answer. Learning to discern the still, small voice of God is an acquired ability that takes time and practice. Sometimes God speaks in a quiet inner voice, and sometimes God speaks to me through a series of thoughts that come to mind.

The key is to allow your heart to be exposed to God. Let God know how you are feeling. The Psalms are wonderful for this very reason; the psalmist is not afraid to let the anger or anguish, praise or thanksgiving be made known to God.

8. Journal. It is helpful to write down your thoughts and feelings during these quiet times with God. Jot down your thoughts or questions in a journal. It helps crystallize what you are learning and offers a written record you will find valuable in the years to come.

I hope this offers you some basic ideas about how to use your time. These eight steps can be done in twenty to thirty minutes or, at a leisurely pace, can take up forty-five minutes to an hour.

Several years ago I participated in an exercise in which I was to try to do one unselfish and unexpected act of kindness or generosity each day, for thirty straight days. I really enjoyed the exercise. It forced me to think more about what I could do for other people, and it gave me the encouragement to actually carry them out. I found myself doing a lot of little things for people (taking someone’s tray back in the cafeteria) and occasionally larger things (helping friends move). It also forced me to be creative because, believe it or not, doing one unexpected and unselfish act of kindness every day is harder than you might think. Fortunately, the person who created the exercise told us ahead of time that it would be hard, so at least we were not surprised.

The only thing I did not like about it was precisely that problem. I found myself forcing my acts of kindness in places where it was not welcome or needed. And I found myself faking a bit. (Is waving at a stranger an unexpected act of kindness?) After a few years I decided to find a more attainable yet still transforming approach. Instead of one-a-day, I challenged myself to do four unselfish and unexpected acts of kindness or generosity each week. This really helped me, because sometimes there is nothing to do, but on other days three for four opportunities may arise.

The next thing I discovered was that I could also expand the exercise to include doing things that indicate I am maladjusted to this world. For example, if I choose not to buy something I do not need, I am showing I am maladjusted to the greed, materialism and excess of this world. If I resist the temptation to treat people according to their social class (usually indicated by dress) and treat all people as equal to me and to one another, I am showing that this world is not my home; I belong to the kingdom of God. If I decide to slow down and avoid rushing, I am demonstrating that I am maladjusted to the culture of hurry I live in.

By opening my experiment up to include these kinds of things, it really got interesting. I was intentionally doing things that I might otherwise not have done, and doing them with a sense that I am a citizen of another world. Kindness and generosity, to be sure, are peculiar activities of the highest kind. So I would like you to concentrate, especially this week, on planning four unselfish acts of kindness, acts of peculiarity or acts of maladjustment.

Here are some examples of the things I have enjoyed doing: