A few months before my wife and I were married I received one of those “out of the blue” pieces of marital advice I’d been warned about.  I had mentioned that I would be married soon and a man I’d only met fifteen minutes previous said to me:

“Son, you be sure to change that toilet paper before she asks you.”

I mostly just sat there and nodded as if that made all the sense in the world.

At the next red light he said “I’m serious, now.”
“I can tell, man. Thanks.”
“No, you don’t get it. I just lost mine.  I shoulda changed the TP. It would have made a difference.”

He had lost his marriage and was attributing it to not changing the toilet paper.  He was right that I didn’t get it. But I remembered that conversation (for its weirdness if for no other reason) and have been an avid toilet-paper-changer throughout the course of my marriage.

Come to find out, being on TP duty has never been so much a matter of toilet paper as it has been a matter of living in a state of readiness; readiness to change the toilet-paper, of course, but more generally ready serve my wife.  It has been about fostering a posture of service.

In marriage I’ve learned that the little things don’t add up to a healthy relationship; they are symptomatic of it.  If I am unable or unwilling to do the small things, it is likely that my willingness to more fully serve my wife, especially if it meant my own discomfort, is compromised.  TP duty serves as a reminder of where my heart is at as well as a way to practice living in the correct posture towards my wife.

Lent is a way to practice this same kind of posture towards the whole of my world.

The practice of “giving up something for Lent” can seem a lot like changing toilet paper; it’s an action whose association with the larger issues of life can appear disassociated.  But practicing sacrifice readies a heart to make more urgent sacrifices when sacrifice is necessary (which, in my experience, is any time significant personal, political, sociological change is needed).

This is part of why each Lent, my church community directly associates our Lent practice with the redemptive work of organizations like the Blood:Water mission who builds and maintains clean water wells for the 900 million who still lack it.  Our simple act of “going without” has a direct impact on providing for those who lack.  We are reminded that sacrifice is always necessary for change, progress or redemption. Lent is a season to practice the kind of sacrifice characteristic of healthy relationship with our world.

(If you’ve not already committed to doing so, consider taking the Blood:Water 40-day challenge or finding your own way to practice Lent.)

Earlier this Fall, I wrote a blog entry for the Art House America blog on the relationship between Worship and Justice.  The piece was part of a longer bit I wrote about the triad of Art, Worship and Justice. If you’ve not yet read the initial posting at Art House America, you can do so here. Below is the continuation of that thought.

——

In his book “The Dangerous Act of Worship” Mark Labberton writes

“The perception that issues of justice and issues of worship are separate or sequential or easily distinguishable shows the inadequacy of our theology: both of worship and of justice”
-The Dangerous Act of Worship, Intervarsity Press

I believe that artists are uniquely and particularly positioned to invite and challenge their people to this work of Worship and Justice.  This is so because of the nature of the artistic gift and the authority that gift grants an artist culturally.

The Nature of the Artist’s Gift

Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; not because of it’s usefulness.  According the the Genesis account of creation, God created light and immediately called the light “good.”  This despite the fact that, in the creation sequence, much the physical had yet to be created.  Light, the function of which is to make things see-able, was “good”  not because of it’s usefulness but simply because God made it.

It seems to me that the Genesis account of creation establishes a basis for the worth of all things that runs much deeper than utility.  Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; it is His,… The innate value of all things rests in their relationship to the Creator.

Similarly, the nature of art proclaims this same value relationship between Creator and creation.  To a songwriter, for instance, a song’s worth is not established by it’s success in the marketplace. Nor does failure in the marketplace detract from that same song’s worth.  Intrinsically, that song’s worth is established in it’s relationship to its artist.  Because of this truth regarding the nature of art, I believe every time an artist makes a piece or writes a story etc… the Creator-creation value relationship is proclaimed.  It is this value-relationship that provides the most consistent foundation for advocacy: The elderly, the poor, the developmentally disabled and the unborn have their worth equally established and maintained in their relationship to the God who made them.  Their inability to contribute to the Market’s bottom line does nothing to detract from their value.

The Authority of Art

Furthermore, art opens doors in the hearts of those who engage it.  The artists behind this work (or in it as the case may be) are granted a peculiar authority to walk through those doors and make suggestions as to how listeners or viewers perceive and interact with reality.  Perhaps because of its much wider cultural accessibility, this is most clearly exemplified in the case of music wherein the fashion of young women can often be directly traced to a particular artist or (on a brighter note) concern for a region of the world can become somewhat fashionable due to the poetic call of another artist or band.   This authority begs the question “how will you use it?”  The other way to ask the same question is to ask “What are you calling your people to?”  I would hope (in fact I would suggest) that

Conclusion

Having an intentional knowledge of both the Nature and Authority of their gift, artists can enter the conversation about art’s role (particularly music’s role) in worship more completely; knowing that music, as form of art, tells a key part of the Story by its very nature; that the authority art gives an artist must be handled with wisdom and that embracing his role as an artist among people means knowingly leading that people in worship that truly transforms their lives and the world in which those lives are led. A worship indistinguishable from the practice of Justice.

For the past few years, my wife and I have had the honor of leading a community of men and women called the “Justice League.”  As a community, the Justice League has committed itself to seeing God’s justice brought about in four areas of focus: Local Poverty (primarily homelessness), Global Poverty (in partnership with grassroots organizations in Liberia and Mexico), Human Trafficking (primarily in the way responsible consumerism impacts the issue) and Public Schools (primarily in partnership with educators already working in local schools).

Having served with these men and women for the past few years, I’ve seen the honest transformation of many lives, as well as our own. Some are men and women who were moved by the idea of serving the local poor are now men and women who have sacrificed their comfortable living situation and moved downtown to live among the poor. Some are men and women who were shaken by the plight of underpaid and enslaved workers now will not buy products made by slaves.  In fact, in each area of focus those involved have begun to embody their ideals.

I shared the above encouragement with the Justice League at a recent gathering. But I also shared with them this thought to remind us all why we continue to gather around our ideals as a community rather than just coddle them on our own:

“One of the odd downsides to embodying our ideals is that, in the process, we can easily lose sight of those ideals. In other words, it’s easier to see whatever new work is at hand because it is new and unusual; it stands out.  What is harder to see is the everyday pattern of a life in the process of transformation. We are a community of men and women who truly live differently than we did two years ago. We spend differently, we read the news differently, we plan differently and measure our successes differently.  We are a more just, more compassionate, more aware and even wiser a people that we were before, though at times those changes may be difficult to see in ourselves.

So, in order that we do not lose sight of the distance we have come, we gather.

We gather to remember where we’ve come from and who we are becoming.

We gather to give others the opportunity to encourage us on our journey

We gather to encourage others on theirs.

We gather to be reminded to care about the things we care about.

We gather to see ourselves more clearly.”

My wife and I share the great joy of overseeing and leading a community of people called the Justice League in my hometown of Concord, CA.  Put simply, the Justice League is a community in Concord, CA committed to the work of Justice. Our focuses (or “foci”) are Local Poverty, Public Schools, Human Trafficking/Responsible Consumerism and Global Poverty (with a select group of Global Partnerships). At a recent Justice League gathering, I shared a video of Gideon Strauss speaking at Gordon College on the topic of Justice.  His talk was entitled “Justice Is Not Optional,” but I highlighted something I found more intriguing about his talk; the idea that Justice is relational.

During his talk, Gideon defines Justice as “treating creatures according to how God created them; (forging) relationships with God’s creatures in such a way as to give them their due as what they are.”  Gideon is suggesting that Justice is relational; that in order to offer justice to someone, I must have a knowledge of who that person is intended to be in full bloom, unhindered by poverty, oppression or whatever obstacle lies in their path.

I find that idea very challenging.

Gideon goes on to say “Justice cannot be reduced to some kind of mute, rough equality.”  It is this “rough equality” I generally default to in my thinking about Justice.  Most often, even my most sincere emotional response to injustice amounts to something like “Let’s find some surplus money among us and throw it at this ‘situation’ in order to fix it.”  It is an easier kind of justice in the long run, since it costs very little.

I’m beginning to realize that the justice I normally envision is mostly a conceptual blanket which only hides the dappled, shifting landscape of creation and particularly humanity, but does nothing to legitimately heal and repair.  It’s the kind of justice that emotionally and eagerly responds to distress with the generalized idea that “we” (a word which also lacks clarity) have to make this “right” when we may not have spent the time to orient ourselves in order to know what “right” looks like in a particular place or for a particular person.

The kind of justice Gideon describes includes (in fact, requires) an intricate and even personal knowledge of the systems, cities and persons in need of justice, as well as a keen awareness of the limitations, needs and presumptions of those working for it.  A person living in Concord, CA, for instance, would need to know the city of Concord in order to do justice in Concord or for its people. But, knowing a city is an enormous endeavor; requiring great amounts of time and patience.  It is not the kind of thing one envisions doing in the moment he or she is moved to action by the sudden knowledge that Concord’s “Monument Corridor” is one of the fastest growing poverty traps in California…

(Continued in part II coming soon.  In the meantime… feel free to work on this.)