Last Thursday. . . .that section from Soul Tsunami

Last Thursday was our first “Into the Light” of the semester. It was an evening that I had been looking forward to for a few weeks. There is a lull that hangs over me mid way in the Summer break and I begin really missing our students and looking forward to reconnecting with them.

We had a great summer, in terms of ministry and maintenance, our Board really kicked in with some great work days and we accomplished so many things in preparation for the beginning of the Fall semester. One of the things we were able to do is meet at the end of June for the culmination of our Spring fundraiser, Riding our Bikes in the “tour de oink”. During that weekend we met and began vision ministry for the Fall and set our theme for the 2009-10 School year.

The theme is “Living Water” based on John 4:10-11. A meeting of Jesus and the woman at the well in the Samaritan village of Sychar. There are so many of what I call “spokes” in this story: The Well, Samaria, The Hour, the absence of the disciples, The original contractor of the Well-- Jacob, Jesus, the male Jewish Rabbi, The Woman, the living water vs regular well water. It is a brilliant tapestry offering promise and acknowledging, without apologies, the awkwardness of the situation.

The purpose in my message, on this first night of worship, was to lay out the theme by directing us to think about its context and who it was that was speaking. How “the Well” is still something that is relatable to us and how its context is vital to our understanding of this story. How we receive this story and in doing so also receive the “living water” and how we are compelled by this “living water’ to share it with those that are thirsty. How we can view our context on the University Campus and have eyes and ears to see how our context gives us opportunity to both receive and share this same “living water”

In trying to develop this notion of context I shared a section from “Soul Tsumani” by Lenard Sweet. Len Sweet is one of my favorite authors and he considers himself a “futurist” this book was written in 1999 and it cast a vision of what “Post Modern” culture would look like. Particularly in this section Dr. Sweet was fleshing out what he calls the “double ring”. I asked students to listen to the section that I read and ask themselves if indeed our culture looked like what Dr. Sweet 10 years ago was describing. The following is what I read to them.

“One of the characteristic features of postmodern culture is that opposite things happen al the same time without being contradictory. Anyone who doesn’t feel pulled in conflicting directions doesn’t understand Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Paul’s exclusion principle and Schrodinger’s wave equation. Where the modern age was predominantly either-or, the postmodern world is and/also. Or phrased more memorably, “the postmodernist always rings twice.”

This is an in-your-face society. This is a get-out-of-my-face society.

This is a culture where you want it to stop and you want it to go on.

This is a culture of outplacing and replacing, deployment and unemployment, high fat and low fat, no fat and fake fat.

This is a society where the nun Isabella in Hal Hartley’s 1994 movie Amateur can confess that she is a nymphomaniac---and admit she has never had sex. This is a culture where the sexiest lingerie and negligees are marketed by a firm that promotes a Victorian ambiance. This is a double-edged culture, a culture of paradox. Philosopher Manuel Castell, the intellectual heir to Hegel, has written a three volume magnum opus, The Information Age. He devotes his first volume to exploring how communications technologies are pulling us together. His second volume is dedicated to exploring the forces that are pulling us apart.

Four fundamental transitions in our perception of the world divide the modern from the postmodern era, creating the double-ring phenomenon.
1.) In the cosmic and quantum worlds, there are always two sides or parts to all the wholes. Physicist Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity provides a scientific scaffolding to the double-ring phenomenon. Light is particles. Light is waves. Human existence is both then and there, particle and wave. Physicist Joseph J. Thomson received the Nobel Prize for showing that matter is made up of particles known as electrons. His son received the same prize for showing that electrons exhibit the properties of waves. Sound is bother wave and particle, light is both wave and particle. You and I are both matter and energy, you and I are both clumps of particles and waves of energy. Given the oneness of matter and spirit, not to hit the double ring is to sound a half truth. . .(Soul Tsunami, pp27-28)

As I was reading this section I realized(by the looks of some faces) I had ran off the road in my effort to talk about our context. I apologize for not being more clear to anyone that might be reading this and was there last Thursday. This notion of the “Double-Ring” is something that I think is vital to the context of our culture. At this point though I would argue that we don’t just have a “Double-Ring” anymore(if we ever had) but rather a “Multi-Ring”. And if there is multiples of rings to our context we are obliged to be listening for how they will unfold around us. And by identifying the layers thus be prepared to both receive and offer “living water”.

Tonight we will be looking at John 7:38. Another verse in which Jesus reference’s “Living Water” and identifies one of the sources or agitators of this water.

Less than a Week

In less than a week students new and old will be returning to the UCA campus. It has been a good summer, but I'm ready for everyone to get back and get into a new academic year. I consider the season's during this time. How each turn of the planet keeps us moving, moving, moving. I think about the notion that what we were created to be is in motion, moving in sync with the creator. Moving to where He leads us. And how each new movement, brings us both to new yet familiar places. Our shepherd leading us to green pastures that we may have been to before but that have had the opportunity in our absence to grow fresh and sustaining grass for us to graze on. I see in my minds eye these fresh pastures and also look for the brooks, rivers and lakes where we might quench our thirst. The watering holes that offer us the opportunity to pause for a cool drink. That simple water that fills us with what we need to live.

This year we will be thematically moving with the "Living Water" that Christ offers. That living water that he first offered to a woman at a Well. Only that living water that he offers comes to us from a place other than a Well. That living water that quench's our thirsts and continues to flow and move in and through us. We are moving with this water and even in our necesary moments of stillness, it continues to flow. Keeping us constantly in motion. My prayer is that as we journey that this living water will be shared and grow into a raging river.