Pencil Poised...Subversive Spirituality, Here I Come

I practically got shivers when I opened up my new-to-me copy of Eugene Peterson's Subversive Spirituality. 

This is a collection of Peterson's essays that I have loved, and returned to over and over, for years. For some reason, however, I just never owned my own copy. I would trot to the seminary library whenever I wanted it. And I would photocopy the essays that I especially needed to have on hand -- I know I've got copies of several of them stuffed into various binders and journals (I've come across them in the archaeological dig we've been going through as we pack and move).

I was placing an order for another old book that means a lot to me (the out of print Prayer and Temperament) on Advanced Book Exchange the other day. ABE is an amazing place to find bargains on older, used books. I've been wanting a return to some of the essays in Subversive Spirituality again, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that I could probably find a used copy very cheaply. And would you believe I found one for $3.65 and free shipping?

Granted, the copy is dog eared -- literally. The top right hand corner is bent. There are a couple of small tears in early pages, and a place in the opening chapter where it looks like someone must have had a paper clip for years. Those opening pages are a little worn and wrinkled looking, but the pages improve as it goes on (sadly, it looks like whoever owned it previously didn't get very far into reading it). But I don't mind the imperfections, especially because it has *no marks* -- no underlines, no highlighting, no nothin' of the sort.

Which means I get to mark it up. Oh happy me! I've got my pencil poised and ready, because it feels like I bump into something almost every paragraph that makes me say "oh!" or catch my breath, or decide I need to remember or to share. In fact, you may be seeing quite a few quotes make their way here over the next weeks and months as I meander my way through.

Just to get things started, here's a wonderful quote from his essay/lecture on the gospel of Mark:

"The Bible as a whole comes to us in the form of narrative, and it is within this large, somewhat sprawling narrative that St. Mark writes his gospel...Gospel is a true and good form, by which we live well. Storytelling creates a world of presuppositions, assumptions, and relations into which we enter. Stories invite us into a world other than ourselves, and, if they are good and true stories, a world larger than ourselves. Bible stories are good and true stories, and the world that they invite us into is the world of God's creation and salvation and blessing...Within the large, capacious context of the biblical story we learn to think accurately, behave morally, preach passionately, sing joyfully, pray honestly, obey faithfully."

Two Movements: Into and Out of the Sanctuary

This week I have my students thinking and writing about the different ways the Anglican church engaged the culture in the 19th century. The Oxford Movement, with its emphasis on the "church gathered" and the importance of gathering in worship to "be the church," sometimes had reservations about the Evangelical movement and its commitment to social action, the way it was "being the church" within the world. (This would be the second generation of the Evangelical revival, folks like Wilberforce and his Clapham friends.)

The distinction drawn, for the sake of the question, is purposefully overdrawn for the sake of compelling thought and discussion. Of course the higher church folk often engaged the culture "in the world" in specific ways, and of course the Evangelicals didn't cease to gather in worship to remember who they were. It's more a matter of emphasis, of looking at where each found its firmest understanding of who they were and where they stood. But it's a good question and a perennial one: what does it mean to be church, and how do we best relate to the world around us with fresh gospel energy?

So during my morning quiet time, when I came across this passage in Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book, I just had to chuckle:
 

 "The task of liturgy is to order the life of the holy community following the text of Holy Scripture. It consists of two movements. First it gets us into the sanctuary, the place of adoration and attention, listening and receiving and believing before God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives ordered to all aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus.

Then it gets us out of the sanctuary into the world into places of obeying and loving, ordering our lives as living sacrifices in the world to the glory of God.  There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives out on the street participating in the work of salvation."

Two movements. Into the sanctuary, out of the sanctuary. Both involving the same kinds of actions: listening, loving, obeying, believing, ordering, giving God glory. Both involving all parts of us. Amen. Yes.