To this point in the series our focus has been almost exclusively psychological, about the way a fear of death shapes our identity and then how that fear-based identity causes failures of love. But before ending this series we should say something about the church and its role in helping us overcome a fear of death and facilitating acts of love.Again, the relationship between fear and failures of love has to do with the fact that love often involves a diminishment of the self. Fearing this diminishment we become focused on self-preservation or the neurotic pursuit of self-esteem. We don't give to others because we fear we won't have enough for ourselves--enough money, energy, or time. We don't take the last place at the table because we fear being small, unnoticed and insignificant in the face of death. We resist death, then, by inserting either resources or a heroic identity between ourselves and death. Each produces sin. The buffer of resources makes us selfish and stingy. The buffer of self-esteem makes us rivalrous, prideful and violent. Rivalrous toward ingroup members doing better than we are. Prideful toward ingroup members doing worse than we are. And violent toward outgroup members who question the gods and values that support our heroic self-esteem project.
Obviously, selfish, envious, prideful, and violent people are going to have a hard time loving others. Such are the psychological and behavioral expressions of a life enslaved to the fear of death. Resurrection, therefore, is victory over this fear in the concrete expression of love toward others. Resurrection is the willingness to undergo a diminishment of the self and the ego to give life to others. Resurrection is perfect love casting out fear.
In light of all this it's reasonable to ask about sustainability. Can an isolated individual sustain this sort of lifestyle? At some point, as a consequence of this lifestyle of sacrificial giving, will not our situation and self become so diminished that we start to become the person in need? At what point along this continuum of diminishment and kenosis (emptying) should I stop and draw the line? In one of the more provocative parts of Unclean I discuss the nature of boundaries, how we set limits on the demands from others to provide for times of self-care, self-rehabilitation, and self-refreshment. A boundary is the point where we start to say No to others and Yes to the self.
The Christian tradition provides no clear consensus on where these boundaries should be set or if they should be set at all. What is clear is that the saints have tended to set these boundaries in more "extreme" locations relative to the mass of Christians. In short, though I offer no specific recommendations as to how to manage all this, I think it clear that the saints and the gospels prophetically encourage us to adjust our current boundaries, to say Yes more to others and No more to the self. It's the journey of learning to love more and more that seems most critical rather than someone like me setting some rule-bound or rigid standards of self-renunciation. Though I'm not sure how far we should go in some ultimate or absolute sense, I am fairly certain that most of us can do more. That's what I'm asking us all to consider.
However, these questions about sustainability become a bit less acute if we shift focus away from individuals toward the community. We aren't being asked to love sacrificially all by ourselves. God isn't asking us to be a Christian version of Atlas, holding up the whole world by our love alone. Rather, God is asking us to participate in a community that mutually practices sacrificial love. I love others while these same others are loving me in return. The issue of sustainability is problematic when we think of love flowing in a single direction, out of me and into you. If that's the only thing going on, yes, I'll soon be empty. I'll be quickly used up. But if you are pouring back into me, if love is flowing in both directions, then I'm less worried about my tank running dry.
This is why Christian love is less about sacrifice than it is about economy. Something is indeed sacrificed, there is a hurtle of fear to clear, but on the other side abundant life is found within the koinonia of the Kingdom. These are the dynamics that Jesus was describing in Mark 10:
Mark 10.17-31Jesus asks the Rich Young Ruler for something radical, to sell it all and give it to the poor. Not surprisingly, the young man gives in to the fear of death. I know this because I know what would be going through my mind if I was standing in his shoes. And, truth be told, we are all standing in his shoes. We know the fear and anxiety he is facing.
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
So we think Jesus is asking the man to make a sacrifice. But Jesus doesn't see it that way. According to Jesus if the man is able to overcome his fear and lose his life there will be an abundance awaiting him in the life of the Kingdom. Jesus isn't asking the young man to give it all away to starve to death as a homeless person. Jesus is asking him to participate in the Jubilee of God's Kingdom economy.
In short, Jesus isn't asking us to love the world all by ourselves. That's not sustainable. Jesus is asking us to participate in communities of love, what he calls the Kingdom of God. Within these communities I will undergo diminishment on your behalf but I am soon filled and rehabilitated by others. I sacrifice to find abundance waiting for me on the other side. That is the vision of church.
Acts 4.32-34At this point you are no doubt wondering: I've never see a church like this. I haven't either, but I've seen people get close. I think of monastic and intentional communities, new and old. I think of churches and small groups within churches who assist each other, often financially, in times of need. True, churches can be self-absorbed, image-driven and consumeristic. But at her best the church rallies to those in need. Even if it's just showing up on the doorstep with a casserole. In these moments the church is living into the resurrection, drawing closer to the koinonia Jesus envisions in Mark 10 and experienced in the early days of the Jesus movement.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
Again, the goal of this series isn't to offer concrete recommendations for individual or church life. I'm trying to explain dynamics. And having dissected the slavery of death in the hearts of individuals we find in this post similar dynamics at the heart of church life. Jesus is not asking us to love the world as isolated individuals. The call is to participate in communities of self-giving love. Either way, the fear of death is the enemy. A church comprised of fearful individuals is going to be unable to trust each other to the point of loving self-sacrifice. In such a church each member is expected to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining, making no demands upon others. But that's not a church, that's a club. It's a community affiliating around common interests rather than a community based upon love.
In short, church requires risk, the risk always involved in love, the risk of loss and disminishment. The risk of death. If I allow myself to fall will you catch me? The church who can overcome their fear and allow themselves to fall into each others arms will be those who are emancipated from the slavery of death and who will begin to find the abundance of Jubilee in the loving economy of the Kingdom of God.
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