An Open Letter to Matthew Lee Anderson on How Much I Liked His Book, Earthen Vessels

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Hi Matt,

Just finished your Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith.

I absolutely loved it.

The first night I stayed up until 2AM reading it, and last night until 3:30. (And then I had to put the book down and go to bed because I read p. 170 where you wrote, “We deny our mortality and creaturely status when we refuse to sleep.” Oops.)

The margins are thick with ink from my cheap hotel pen. “Why our bodies matter to our faith” is a vast scope to undertake, and yet your treatment is delightfully thorough. This is no mere pupu platter. As we say to our host simply but with deep heart in Korea after an excellent meal: I ate well.

The parts I grew from the most were ones I originally thought I might breeze through because, while obviously important, they were tangential to the reason I picked up your book in the first place (more on that in a second):

  • Homosexuality: “The language of ‘sexual identity’…glorifies sexual expression by establishing it as necessary to our humanity… [I]t is the heterosexuals who first took this step and made sexual expression a ‘need’ on which human flourishing depends” (p. 146).
  • Suicide: (From Chesterton) “The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world” (p. 162).
  • Vampires: “Driven by a nearly unrestrainable desire that denies human limitations, we pour our resources into cultivating the beauty and immortality that mimics the resurrection from the dead…. We want, in other words, all the benefits of the resurrection without acknowledging our dependence upon God as mortal creatures” (pp. 168-169)
  • Sabbath: “In Exodus, the Sabbath regulations are repeated twice, and the episode in between is the construction of the golden calf” (p. 169).
  • Sin: “Sin treats the precious as though it is worthless, disregarding the intrinsic value of the things around us in favor of our own projected fantasies and dreams” (p. 229).

Extraordinary.

Matt, I cite the above not as “zingers” that made me whistle with appreciation as I read. I cite them as real treasures I will reflect on and continue to grow from personally in the days to come. Your book changed me, by the grace of God.

Moreover, your tone throughout Earthen Vessels was charitable, even and perhaps especially to those with whom you disagree. Would that more writers (including me!) do the same. Your humility continued right through to the concluding page, where rather than ending with a QED and a fist pump, you invited us as readers to pick up from where you left off. So in the spirit of that invitation to join the conversation, I wanted to let you know where your book has led me, and what I plan to do next, as a result.

Throughout the book you (rightly, in my view) raised concern over the sad state of Christian “practices” related to theology and the body, and for what passes for orthopraxy these days. Hands down, my favorite paragraph in your book was this one, on p. 191:

A holy attentiveness wherein we present the body as a ‘living sacrifice’ and the members as ‘instruments of righteousness’ has a defined shape—namely, a cross, wherein we give ourselves to others. In that sense, when determining the shape of our spiritual practices—those done to become attentive to the presence of God—we should be wary of engaging in practices that we do not see in Scripture….

A mundane spirituality is not oriented around the feelings of bodily health that we gain—though those are good—but around a life of self-giving to others, a life wherein our bodies become signs of the love of God in the world.

As you note throughout your book, this needs to be something other than Christianized yoga and more than creative prayer postures. Here I think Jesus’ own words in Matthew 7:24 are instructive: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus calls us not just to practices in general but to doing the word in specific—the only acceptable standard for orthopraxy. Thus, this cannot be a call to Christian yoga but a call to do what the church over the centuries (and across the denominations and theological divides) has affirmed as the works of mercy commended by Christ—doing good to our enemies, sharing our bread, opening our homes, visiting the sick and widows and orphans, and healing and comforting, among others.  That’s the real body theology, I reckon.

Much theological hand wringing has been done out of the concern that Christians may think they are earning their way to heaven in doing these things. But if we are grounded in the spiritual disciplines (what the church has also called the works of piety over the ages—Scripture reading, prayer, worship, self-denial, and so forth) we learn very quickly that we should not simply “do these things” (or any good things, for that matter.) Instead, we are called to do the word that we have heard—passing on in bodily form the mercy we have received from Christ and only what we have received from Christ, and doing so in such a way that, as you note above, “our bodies become signs of the love of God in the world.”

So that is where you have led me, Matthew—thanks for that. You have strengthened my interest in digging ever deeper into the bodily doing of the word that is something more than and completely other than simply doing good or doing yoga or doing ten different prayer positions in worship. Through Earthen Vessels you’ve reminded me that doing the word in our bodies must ever be rooted deeply in and circumscribed completely by a proper, comprehensive, thorough, and ongoing hearing  of the word in our souls.

I offer a salutary fist pump in your direction for a job well done.

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How to Start a Lay Church, Principle XII: Do Missions Often. Receive Your Provision on the Road

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Pastor Foley

Here’s a gospel reality that has been almost completely lost to the church today:

Biblically, the message of the gospel and the messenger of the gospel are “joined at the hip.”

That is, failing to welcome the messenger with hospitality is the same thing as rejecting the message of the gospel—and Christ himself.

Christ embodies this in his own life. He places himself, defenseless, in a womb—the womb of a woman betrothed to be married, whose husband contemplates divorcing her quietly to avoid shaming her.

And throughout Jesus’ life, right up through his ascension to heaven, we see him daily seeking hospitality. Consider Matthew 8:20, where Jesus says, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Seeking hospitality daily was as much a part of Jesus’ evangelism approach as was his presentation of the message itself.

Jesus trains his apostles to follow the same approach: travel with nothing, relying on the hospitality of those with whom you share the message. Check out Luke 10:1-4:

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

It’s not because Jesus was a bad fundraiser that he sent out his messengers empty-handed. He could have made sure that his messengers were traveling wealthy philanthropists instead of seemingly needy beggars. But he had a purpose for sending out his messengers with nothing: In so doing, those willing to extend hospitality to his messengers—and thus to him—would be revealed. These hosts would be the ones to whom he himself would extend hospitality when they came to his own kingdom carrying nothing.

When we understand this principle, we can see the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22 in a new light.

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

If the rich young ruler goes out with money, of course everyone will receive him! They will receive him because by his very appearance they will believe that if they receive him they will receive some personal benefit. And that means the gospel message and the gospel messenger stop being identical: the messenger (whether he wants to or intends to or not) now becomes a messenger of wealth and power, not of the gospel.

Worse yet, when we as messengers bring our own provisions, we rob people of the opportunity to exercise their gifts of hospitality, which—since we’re messengers of Jesus—means we rob them of the opportunity to host Christ.

We see these problems due to “hospitality inversion” happen all the time. In nearly every way the gospel is shared these days, Christians are the hosts…and those that don’t know Christ are the strangers to whom the Christians are offering hospitality.

  • Western missionaries come into a poor area, and they are well received by the people there not because the people are responding to the gospel message but rather because the people there are responding to a different message: becoming a Christian will benefit you materially!
  • Churches spend money to reach out to “strangers” in the community, trying to get them to come to the church. And when they come, they give gifts to the strangers.
  • Christian ministries hold huge evangelistic rallies, with bands and balloons and burgers—and, of course, no admission fees.

Strange challenge that we face today: Christians have too much money to need to be hosted by anyone!

How different that attitude is from the Lord Jesus. He had all the riches of heaven, and yet—as we read in Philippians 2:7—he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” He daily was subject to our hospitality—it was indispensable to how he shared the gospel.

So in the lay church, missions is the practice of sharing the gospel by letting our enemies do good to us—from hosting us in their homes to—as Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster taught us so many years ago in their phenomenal book, Language Acquisition Made Practical)—teaching us their language right there on the mission field when we arrive knowing no language other than our own. We let strangers host us as we come in the name of the Lord, and, in so hosting us, host the Lord and welcome the gospel.

So how do we learn to be hosted by strangers and enemies in this way? According to Luke 10, we let them practice on us! And Jesus gives us specific instructions on what to do when they welcome us, and what to do when they don’t.

But how can we, with integrity, still be rich (compared to the rest of the world) and yet go out with nothing?

Here, Christ is our exemplar. Though he possessed all things, he left all things and came with nothing except the message and love of his father, which he mirrored into the world.

In the same way, we who possess a lot can still leave it all—for an hour, for a day, or, ultimately, for a lifetime—as we go with nothing except the message and love of Christ, which we mirror into the world.

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How to Start a Lay Church, Principle XI: Tithe… But Not to the Lay Church!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Pastor Foley

When I share the .W lay church model with folks, I find that consistently one of the biggest attractions is that we expect members to tithe, right from the get-go. That’s not your typical church recruitment draw, but our tithe is not your typical tithe.

Let me explain.

As Generous Church notes, 97% of the money donated to churches is spent on those who give it. That’s neither good nor biblical, and we Christians should be publicly spanked for that.

Rather than taking an offering each Sunday, the lay church prepares to make our offering once a month, on the last Sunday of each month. A month’s preparation has a way of keeping the offering from being a tip for services rendered (literally).

And money is only one part of a member’s offering. In addition, we offer to the Lord each of the songs and each of the Scriptures we learned that month. (You’ll recall from Principle IV that in the lay church we learn–really learn–one song and one Scripture each week, introducing them in the meeting and then having each member practice them nightly in family worship.) We invite each member to offer a Scripture from memory or to lead us in one of the songs we learned. We encourage members to choose the Scripture or song which they found particular challenging or insightful during the month. They precede their offering with a short offering prayer, which helps them–and us–to remember that it is indeed an offering.

But money’s a big part of the offering, too, of that have no doubt. It’s just not money going mainly to the church.

That’s because while each member is expected to offer a tithe, only 30 percent of that tithe is given to the church. (Of that, a third goes to the .W church, a third goes to the Four Corners Conference of the Evangelical Church–our denomination’s regional conference of which we’re a part—or the Evangelical Church Missions program, in the case of our Korean congregation. The final third goes to the Evangelical Church denomination).

But 70 percent of each member’s tithe is consecrated at the altar…and then immediately received back again by each member, to be disbursed personally by that member as the church’s minister within his or her own sphere of influence.

Individuals then use that portion of the tithe to carry out whatever the Work of Mercy is that we’re doing that month. If the Work of Mercy is sharing your bread with the poor, they use the 70% to share their bread with the poor. If it’s healing and comforting, they use the 70% to heal and comfort.

Sometimes members give a portion of the money to an organization that ministers in that particular Work of Mercy, but the focus is really on encouraging the members to undertake ministry directly, in conjunction with that disbursement of funds.

That’s partially facilitated by the field trip that accompanies Offering Sunday each month. If the Work of Mercy for the month is evangelism, the church takes a field trip to do evangelism. If we’re giving away books or tracts or grocery gift cards to the poor–whatever is disbursed, that can come out of a member’s tithe.

Also in the Offering Sunday, each giver shares how they disbursed their 70% over the previous month. We borrow from the US Army something called an “AAR”—After Action Review. We ask each “giving unit” (might be one person or it might be a family—definitely include your kids in the giving decisions and the direct ministry; where else will they learn?) to answer the four questions below as they share about how they distributed their offering from this past month in relation to the Work of Mercy on which we focused:

  • Step 1: What was the intent?
  • Step 2: What happened? Why? What are the implications?
  • Step 3: What lessons did we learn?
  • Step 4: Now what? How can our giving continue in that Work of Mercy in the future?

Note that lay church members don’t get a tax deduction for the 70% they give, since it never goes into the church’s bank account. There’s something healthy and challenging about that—no earthly reward for giving except, well, giving well! And since most lay churches need not incorporate at all anyway, since what with the money flowing through them being pretty modest, maybe none of the tithe will be tax deductible. There’s a biblical ring about that, somehow.

In the lay church, the tithing message to potential congregation members is up front and clear:

Of course this Jesus discipleship stuff is going to involve a radical change in the way you spend your money.

But you can trust us to guide you in it well, since we’re not the beneficiaries.

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