26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 1 of 8
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (2006) Early Quakers discovered a relationship with God and with each other which radicalized their behavior to the point where they rejected and challenged the forms of the material world and were persecuted, killed and imprisoned for their beliefs. They rejected the formalism and hierarchy of the Church, and found a direct and mystical relationship with God in themselves and through their community. As a result of this invigorating new relationship, they changed the way they lived to reflect their convincement. Their lives became more simple, and they rejected outward forms, habits and customs which distracted them from God. They rejected all violence and refused to participate in the English Civil war, accepting peace as the only path. The emphasized integrity in their words and deeds, seeking to express in their lives the values they had accepted in their hearts. They developed a strong community of like‐minded seekers who came together in the Spirit, to let the Spirit guide their actions and deepen their measure. In their community they became interdependent as they shared resources and helped each other as fathers and mothers were imprisoned and property was taken by the Government. They expressed a radical sense of equality that extended to women, children and slaves. Many of the early Quakers were working class, and poor and their community and sense of equality carried a radical opposition to higher class privilege. Many went to jail for refusing to tip their hats to people of higher rank. Over the centuries, Quakers have become more middle and upper class. We have become homogenous. And although we spend a good amount of time meditating and acting on our “testimonies,” we do not have the same radical opposition to the material world, the same sense of immediate divine connectedness, the same interdependent community. Shane Claiborne expresses in direct terms the beauty, passion, and fearfulness of an authentic relationship with God. He shows how in his own life, this passionate love of God and neighbor have led him to simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality. In many ways he has lived in a manner more like early Friends than we do. What does his book have to say about us and our spiritual path? 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 2 of 8
Finding an Authentic, Passionate, Fearful, Direct Relationship with God "As I looked into the eyes of the dying, I felt like I was meeting God. It was as if I were entering the Holy of Holies of the temple ‐ sacred, mystical. I felt like I should take off my shoes." (79) "We are the body of Christ, not in some figurative sense, but we are the flesh and blood of Jesus alive in the world through the Holy Spirit ‐ God's hands, feet, ears." (79) "We dreamed ancient visions of a church like the one in Acts, in which 'there were no needy persons among them' because everyone shared their possession, not claiming anything as their own but 'sharing everything they had."" (64) The truth is when people look at us like we are sacrificial servants, I have to laugh. We've just fallen in love with God and our neighbors and that is transforming our lives. (133) Rebirth is about being adopted into a new family ‐ without borders. With new eyes, we can see that our family is both local and global, including but transcending biology, tribe, nationality, a renewed vision of the kin‐dom of God with brothers and sisters in Afghanistan, and Iraq, Sudan, Burma, North Philly and Beverly Hills. (201) I take great courage form the fact that many of us are taking steps toward a gentler revolution. We need more prophets who laugh and dance. In our living room we have an Emma Goldman quote: 'If I can’t dance, then it is not my revolution.'" Whenever people talk about injustice, usually there is a cloud of guilt looming over them. Joy and celebration don’t usually mark progressive social justice circles or conservative Christian circles for that matter. But the Jesus movement is a revolution that dances. (313) "Our big visions for multiculturalism and reconciliation will make their way into the church only when they are first lived out in real relationships, out of our homes and around our dinner tables and in our living rooms. Perhaps this is why 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 3 of 8
Jesus begins it all by sitting around a table with a Roman tax collector, a zealot revolutionary, a fisherman, a Pharisee, and a prostitute." (329) The Jesus revolution is not a frontal attack on the empires of this world. It is a subtle contagion, spreading one little life, one little hospitality house at a time (336) Simplicity It's too bad that living simply has to be so complicated. Responsible living is a paradox, as it often stirs up questions of privilege. It takes a lot of money or land to tread lightly on the earth (161) When we talk about materialism and simplicity we must always begin with love for God and neighbor, otherwise we are operating out of little more than legalistic guilt ridden self righteousness. Simplicity is meaningful only inasmuch as it is grounded in love, authentic relationships, and interdependence. ... Redistribution is a description of what happens when people fall in love with each other across class lines. (163) The early Christians said that if a child starves while a Christian has extra food, then the Christian is guilty of murder (164) Dorothy Day said, if you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor (165) God's economy involves the mystical multiplication of resources as we give what we have to those in need, and we become dependent ourselves, we all receive our daily bread. (176‐77) He articulates a vision of an alternative economy of radical interdependence, in opposition to the materialism of the market economy and in support of sustainable global living. (178‐80) 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 4 of 8
Peace To Iraq: I went to Iraq because I believe in a God of scandalous grace. . . . I went to Iraq to stop terrorism. There are extremists both Muslim and Christian who kill in the name of their gods. . . I went to Iraq to stand in the way of war. . . . I went willing to die for people I do not know because of spiritual allegiance. . . . I went to Iraq hoping to interrupt terrorism and war, in small ways and in large ways, in moments of crisis and in everyday rhythms. I went to Iraq as an extremist for love. (208) The story of the hospitality of the town of Rutba (214‐216) Integrity "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?" (56) "In our culture of "seeker sensitivity" and radical inclusivity, the great temptation is to compromise the cost of discipleship in order to draw a larger crowd. . . . Jesus does not exclude rich people.; he just lets them know their rebirth will cost them everything they have." (104) Fall in love with a group of people who are marginalized and suffering, and then you won't have to worry about which because you need to protest. Then the issues will choose you. (293) People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them (129 "Without a doubt, envisioning the radical countercultural values of God's kingdom is by its essence political. (194) "Too often we just do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it. In the beatitudes, God tells us what God blesses ‐ the poor, the peacemakers, the 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 5 of 8
hungry, those who mourn, and those who show mercy ‐ so we should not ask God's blessing on a declaration that we will have no mercy on evildoers. We know all too well that we have a God who shows mercy on evildoers, for if he didn't we'd all be in big trouble, and for that, this evil doer is very glad." (219 "Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society." (231) Community Discussing the leper colony in India, Shane writes "They had not chosen to live in 'intentional community.' Their survival demanded community. Community was their life. The gospel was their language. No wonder Jesus said, "blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of god." (87) The Rich young ruler parable says more about the kingdom of god than rich people: " This story is not so much about whether rich folks are welcome as it is about the nature of the Kingdom of God, which has an ethic and economy diametrically opposed to those of the world. Rather than accumulate stuff for oneself, followers of Jesus abandon everything, trusting in God alone for providence." (104) Jesus’ instructions to the rich young ruler do not mean "that the rich people are excluded or not welcome. It means that it is nearly impossible for them to catch the vision of interdependent community, dependent on God and one another. Rich folks, while they may be spiritually starving for God and community, still believe the illusion that they are self‐sufficient autonomous individuals and that belief is incompatible with the Gospel that says wherever two or more are gathered, God is among us. (182) It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a mission project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. One of the verses I have grown to love is the one where Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples and says 'I no longer call you servants . . . Instead I call you friends" (John 15:15) servant hood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love, genuine relationships. (129) 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 6 of 8
I feel sorry that so many of us have settled for a lonely world of independence and riches when we could all experience the fullness of life in community and interdependence. (134) Community is what we are created for. We are made in the image of God who is community, a plurality of oneness. (134) But that doesn't mean that community is easy. for everything in this world tries to pull us away from community, pushes us to choose ourselves over others, to choose independence over interdependence, to choose great things over small things, to choose going fast alone over going far together. the simple way is not the easy way. no one ever promised us that community or Christian discipleship would be easy (135) What an extraordinary thing it must have been to sit around a table with that eclectic mix of zealot revolutionaries, roman tax collectors, peasants, Samaritans, prostitutes, fishermen, all conspiring to find a radical new way of life. (139) Our friends at a sister community called Rutba house in North Carolina organized a gathering devoted to creating a monastic rule of sorts, articulating the many common threads of belief and practice that we see in the contemporary movement of the Spirit. (148‐49) Equality – Finding God and Community Among the Poor "I found that I was just as likely to meet God in the sewers of the ghetto as in the halls of academia. I learned more about God from the tears of homeless mothers and the sparrows, and God will take care of you. Just come." (75) "I fell in love with the Home for the Destitute and Dying and spent most days there. I helped folks eat, massaged muscles, gave baths, and basically tried to spoil people who really deserve it. Each day, folks would die and each day we would go out onto the streets and bring in new people. The goal was not to keep people alive (we had very few supplies for doing that) but to allow people to die 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 7 of 8
with dignity, with someone loving them, singing, laughing, so they were not alone." (77‐78) I had come to see that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor, but that Christians do not know the poor (113) It's no wonder that the footsteps of Jesus lead from the tax collectors to the lepers. I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end (114) I usually tell them that we bring folks like them to learn the kingdom of God from the poor, and then send them out to tell the rich and the powerful there is another way of life being born in the margins. For Jesus did not join the rich and powerful in order to trickle down his kingdom. Rather, he joined those at the bottom, the outcasts and undesirables, and everyone was attracted to his love for people on the margins. (127) Managing poverty is big business, ending poverty is revolutionary (151) Until we have the courage to risk and scheme ways of redistribution with the same passion and fervor with which people scramble after wealth, the market will over power God's vision of Jubilee. (186) True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar. It comes to see the system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved. (153, quoting MLK, Jr.) It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don't feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organizations and never have to open up our homes, our beds, our dinner tables. (158) 26th day, 11th Month 2008 Conversations on Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical Page 8 of 8
Did Jesus say ‐ when I was hungry, you gave a check to United Way? No, he said, when I was hungry you fed me. (158) When the Church becomes a distribution center rather than an organic community, she ceases to be alive. .. . The church becomes a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. Both go away satisfied, the rich feel good, the poor get clothed and fed, but no one leaves transformed. No radical new community is formed. And Jesus did not set up a program but modeled a way of living that incarnated the reign of God. That reign did not spread through organizational establishments or structural systems. It spread like disease ‐ through touch, through breath, through life. It spread through people infected by love. (159) There are plenty liberals who talk about poverty and injustice but rarely encounter the poor, living detached lives of socially responsible but comfortable consumption. And there are plenty of Christians who talk about how much God cares for the poor but don't know any poor folks. (161) The early prophets would say that a church that spends millions of dollars on building while her children are starving is guilty of murder. (329)