Sexual Policy and the Church

Posted in Church, Community of Christ, Discipleship & Ministry, Faith & Politics, Spirituality, Theology on June 7, 2009 by mattfrizzell

On June 6th, I posted a piece entitled “Sexual Policy and the Church” on the  independent blog SaintsHerald.com.  While I write about my experience as a minister of the Community of Christ, my observations reach beyond any one denomination.  It discusses the way the politics of sexuality and church in the U.S. church distort the issues of faith and human sexuality involved.  I try to reflect on my discipleship to Jesus in my struggle to survive these politics.

Comments are welcome at either site.

3 Comments »

Learning to Write a Book

Posted in Spirituality with tags , , , on May 20, 2009 by mattfrizzell

Matt2 bwToday is a self-reflection.

I’ve been writing my dissertation since March.  It’s quite a process, difficult to describe.  Professors and peers who’ve been through the PhD comment to me that this is something no one really understands unless they’ve been through it.  I can appreciate that; I feel the same way about several things.

A PhD, like the dissertation, takes a measure of obsessiveness.  The amount of concentration and tunnel-vision (the next level of focus) it takes is difficult.   It is work, at the level that begins to define a rite of passage.  The idea that you are making an original contribution to the field strikes me as a little difficult to believe.  But, I’ve come to see how a little shift in perspective makes a big difference.  And though ideas get regurgitated, it is these ideas in concert with yours that give your thought meaning and paint the difference.

The writing process, alone, is unique to each person.  This has been the most interesting part for me.  I’m learning how I write.  A dissertation is not a term paper.  I’ve written 40 and 60 page term papers.  But, nothing is like this process.  While it is difficult, I also enjoy it.  However, the writing comes in its own time.  I’ve explained it this way to many people.  Writing my dissertation is nothing like other things I do, like raking.  Raking can be hurried through.  Elbow grease and a dose of work ethic can speed up the process.   You can even do it quick and well.  But, writing is not like that for me.  Working harder, yes.  But, hurrying?  No.  Focus is less a matter of quantity than intensity.   A few interruptions can actually help the process.  Otherwise, its easy to get myopic.

Learning the right level and balance of focus has been the challenge for me.  I have needed to get away, to write a few days at a time.  But, then, I need a break.  Once I break and come back, the distance I’ve gained from my work helps the editing process.  Sometimes, I don’t even follow my own thoughts.

The reason is that writing is hard for me.  It is a discipline.  I try to explain it this way: maybe it was the time and period I was raised.  But, the writing process is way too slow.  It’s linear.  Unlike a picture or image that can be studied from a number of different perspectives, with several entry points, writing follows left to right.  It is more like a journey.  My mind is learning, struggling, to work that way.

My brain doesn’t naturally think that way.  Maybe it was television.  Maybe it was video games.  Maybe it’s because I’m naturally an extrovery who like managing alot of different conversations at the same time.  Either way, the discipline of writing is forcing me to do something different.   And as I tried to say in this post, there is something spiritual about it.

Until scriptures are definitively transferred to a new format (.mp3 or BlueRay?), their form as a text will shape our spirituality.   The fact that scriptures are either scrolls or codex (i.e. book) will shape our thinking about God.  God will always be a wonder.  Jesus will always live in narrative.  The Spirit will continue to come to us in moments of communication, inspiration, and despair.  All these are moments of human life.  They are also the qualities of a book.

Hieroglyphs, symbols, ink, text…literally, sentenced to life, on a page.

14 Comments »

Announcing New Blog

Posted in Church, Community of Christ, Discipleship & Ministry with tags , , , on May 7, 2009 by mattfrizzell

I want to alert you to a new blog being started.  You can check it out at http://saintsherald.com/.

The SaintsHerald.com is not an official site of the Community of Christ.  Rather, it was started less than a month ago by a group of young (~20-30’s) members, scholars, and activists interested in engaging the emerging issues facing the Community of Christ, with an eye to its connection to the greater Restration movement.

You are invited to the discussion.  Please check it out, read a post, and make a comment.  Today, the future is emerging.

Peace.

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The New Testament of the Restoration

Posted in Church, Community of Christ, Faith & Politics, Theology on April 19, 2009 by mattfrizzell

Another denominational post.   I have mixed feelings about this.

In my journey with God, I cannot control what I was born into.  The more I develop my testimony – the more I search the soul of the faith I grew up with and the scriptural record in search of clarity – the more I come to see the Community of Christ as the receivers of a New Covenant.

To grasp my meaning, you have to see the spiritual struggle told through the bible as a repeatable historical struggle.  The bible doesn’t tell the story of a linear history, though there is that sense.  More importantly, it tells the journey of a people with God – from their liberation, establishment, prophetic challenge, fall, and struggle to understand the messiah who fulfills the law of righteousness, but not their expectations.

The more I reflect on this story of judgment and redemption, I see it in the Community of Christ story.  The Restoration, like all the Restoration movements of the 19th century, arrogantly or not, proclaimed to reclaim the New Testament church.   However, like every prophetic “return to origins,” it suffered temptations – overstating its self-legitimacy, temptation to self-righteous, and idolatry of its “specialness” at the exclusion of others.   The church and its distinctiveness overtook Christ as the center.  Judgment came not from without, but from within the church.   Claims of apostasy, divided loyalties, and lead schisms.  More than once.

It seems, the most dangerous time in any movement is when past clarity, defined by knowing who your enemies are, is no longer clear.   A movement does not need to be conquered from without when the enemies are within.   When division, internal strife over “the true meaning of the movement” set the movement against itself.  Is this what happened with Israel?  Babylon and Assyria only filled a vacuum created within?

It’s certainly what happened with the Restoration…multiple times.  It happened in the last 40 year’s of the Community of Christ.

The more I reflect on the scriptures and try to piece together what happened to the Reorganization, I see the glimmer of a New Testament period possibly in the Restoration.  This is the emerging period.  It is defined by the following realizations.

  • In the end, Jesus is the first and last prophet of the church.
  • Therefore, Jesus is the center and that center is shared by any Christian who proclaims Jesus Christ as the measure of God’s creation and redemption.
  • The Kingdom Jesus brings breaks open all religious, ethnic, or national definitions.
  • That Kingdom on Earth is Zion.
  • Zion has arrived where Jesus Christ is present, followed, and proclaimed in people’s lives.

The Old Covenant of the Restoration would claim sole rights to the authority of this Kingdom.   The Old Covenant would not see the possibility of this covenant fulfilled in God’s ongoing revelation.  New revelation would only reinforce prior revelation.   The center of the church is not God’s new revelation, seen also in Jesus, but the church and its righteousness.

I must be clear.  I am not trying to use the “Old Testament” and “New Testament” in ways to disparage Jews, Judaism, or claim self-righteousness for the Community of Christ over any group of Christians.  Rather, as I’ve tried to say, I’m trying to see the struggle of the accepting Jesus, the Messiah, in a biblical context and read that into the life and history of a specific history and specific church…..

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A Moment of Decision: Veazey’s Address

Posted in Church, Community of Christ, Discipleship & Ministry, Theology on April 8, 2009 by mattfrizzell

I don’t like to focus solely on Community of Christ or internal denominational issues.  This internal focus is part of a greater disease plaguing so many of our churches.   However, that said, denominations do face challenges from many sides in the U.S. and many of us face these challenges together.    This disease is no respecter of denominations.

Click the picture to view President Veazey’s Address.  (52 minutes)

President of the Community of Christ, Steve Veazey gave an address to the Community of Christ this past Sunday, April 5th that deserves attention.   In the end, I think Steve has prophetic direction that is not simply limited to our church, but could be for Christian communities everywhere.  In this time of economic uncertainty and denominational instability,  “The vision and mission of Jesus Christ matters most.”   I believe our scriptures are clear on this.  Jesus proclaimed a kingdom beyond religious loyalties, ethnic identity, moral codes, rules of righteousness, and dependency on profits.  I thank President Veazey for taking our attention there.  Amen!

In the following, I give what I believe is a summary of his main points, along with my own reflections.   My hope is that together, we can digest the message available in his address and work it into our lives.  Quotations are taken from the text, which can be found here.

  1. Our denomination’s long term financial viability. To start off, President Veazey addressed concerns about the long-term viability of the Community of Christ.  As a denominational structure, the church is not in jeopardy.  “The sacrificial generosity of past generations, the foresight of previous leaders, and the disciplined application of financial policies in the present continue to secure the church’s long-range financial future.”  However, to make ends meet, the church will reduce the 2010 World Ministries budget by $4,000,000.   How will our people respond?
  2. Our Economic Challenges Reveal Spiritual Issues. How will we respond?  Veazey offers prophetic leadership by offering us spiritual insight.  It is an insight that has far reaching implications for our discipleship, not only as a church but also for our personal lives and America as a whole.  Veazey states, “I believe the economic situation actually reveals a spiritual issue that will require a spiritual response.”    Any spiritual response will take us beyond ourselves.   As a church, President Veazey reminds us that we are not simply members of a congregation.   But, this insight applies to all Christians.   As a community of Christ – both denominationally and figuratively – we belong to a world-wide family.   It is made up of all who profess the Lordship of Jesus Christ.    Veazey stated, “The church is an international body that God has called into being to fulfill divine purposes related to the coming reign of God on earth.”  What President Veazey says about the Community of Christ is a theological statement – a confession of faith – that bleeds over denominational walls and applies to every disciple of Jesus Christ throughout the world. This is a prophetic statement.  President Veazey’s call is for no less than a spiritual awakening.  If Jesus’ life and teaching ground our hope and guide our energies, our generous response – in both financial terms and in personal stewardship – will follow this spiritual trajectory.   Christ’s call is life-sized.  Religion is not a strictly “personal” matter.   Following Christ requires a vision that is world-wide.  All this reveal a vision for life lived in biblical proportions.   Beyond any priesthood office or denominational definition, Jesus’ life and teaching reveals precious truths told with a subtle plainness.   As a Rabbi, Jesus knew we teach what we are living.   This is a challenge to every member, every priesthood member, every Mission Center President, and every World Church leader.   The paradox of God’s sacrifice is its generosity.  Such divine generosity is a defining characteristic of Jesus’ life and teaching.   God’s economy, relational and spiritual, pours forth out of the life and death of Jesus Christ.   It continues in the life of his followers.   Grace and generosity flow equally in Jesus standing invitation to “Follow me.”
  3. Internal Questions: History. Before returning to the centrality of Jesus’ mission, President Veazey addressed certain internal denomoninational concerns that continue to hinder and distract the church form its purpose.  The first is the entanglement of the church’s sense of identity and history.  In brief, Veazey stated that the church has focused too long on the importance of the churches first 14 years (1830-44).  In fact, we have neglected the much larger portion of our history: the figures, decisions, and events of the Reorganization from 1860 on.   These years provide a kind of theological corrective to some of the speculations and indulgences of the church’s early period.  It is in the Reorganization that we can find the historical roots of our unfolding faith-story.  Veazey concluded, “I think [Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III] would see their hopes for the church being fulfilled in our emphasis on reconciliation and healing of the spirit; our openness to continuing revelation; our growing understanding of giftedness and ministerial calling; our concern for the poor; and our strong focus on promoting peaceful Christian community as the hope of Zion.”
  4. Internal Questions: Scripture. President Veazey called the church to greater responsibility in its interpretation, use, and understanding of scripture.  Referencing the church’s recent statement on scripture as well as Doctrine and Covenants 163:7d, President Veazey re-emphasized that Community of Christ does not hold nor condone the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy.  Instead, the church emphasizes two principles or teachings with regards to the nature, use, and interpretation of scripture.  First, there is the defining role of the Holy Spirit in illuminating scripture.  Second, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ are the definitive rule and revelation for interpreting and using scripture.  He stated, “Community of Christ…stresses that all scripture must be interpreted through the lens of God’s most-decisive revelation in Jesus Christ.”  In sum, “Scripture is authoritative, not because it is perfect or inerrant in every literal detail, but because it reliably keeps us grounded in God’s revelation.”    Being grounded in God’s revelation is a matter of discipleship, i.e. living a life of study, faith, and humility in relationship to scripture, not claiming to possess such truth or claim its authority.
  5. The Problem with Our Attention on Internal Issues. I believe the conclusion of President Veazey’s address is most prophetic, even by scriptural standards.   Steve Veazey recognizes the tragic scenario that befalls us as we place our energies and attention on internal church matters instead of putting faith in Jesus Christ and the promises of his community.  He stated plainly, “It is telling that much of what I have addressed so far is about internal church issues. This is the greatest challenge we face. Will we be able to put internal church issues in proper perspective so we can focus first on our mission…”   He follows with the kind of questions a modern prophet would ask – questions that echo in the empty spaces of our internal perspective and its increasing tunnel vision.   He asks, “Are we mobilizing to provide pastoral care and tangible help to individuals and families that are barely surviving because of economic pressures? Are we responding to the increasing hatred and violence toward immigrants and ethnic minorities because others want to make them scapegoats for our common difficulties? What about the children in your community? How are they doing? What does it mean to be a prophetic people who speak and act in the name of God and Christ in times like these?“  He, then, reminds the church, “Many of our members live in countries with developing or nonfunctional economic and political systems. Their situation is much worse than anything many of us in more affluent areas are experiencing.“    Just like in scriptural times, these questions tell us if we have ears to hear.  The prophet presents us the divine gift of our own uneasiness and introspection – the kind that calls for repentance and cultivates inspiration if we have the faith to suffer it and grace to receive it.
  6. Inspired Pastoral Counsel. President Veazey ends his 52 minute address with a note of confirmation and conviction.  “What matters most,” he says directly, “is for us to become who God is calling us to become so the restoring ministry of Christ can be shared in every possible way in every possible place.”     Honestly, these words hit me numb, but only because they to convey both the possibility and impossibility.   What’s true for the church, I believe, is true for me and every Christian.    Jesus proclaimed a “here-and-now” kind of gospel.  His disciples followed him before he they ever knew he would die or be resurrected because he had a message.  “On earth, as it is in heaven.”   The promise of eternal life is not some personal salvation.  It’s the individual call to discipleship and universal hope for daily bread.    President Veazey ended with the inspired pastoral counsel below.

Fear not! Do not be afraid to become who God is calling you to become. God, the Eternal One, has been with you in your past, continues with you in the present, and already is waiting patiently for you in the future. Through your lives the sacred story of the Restoration still is being written.

Engage the current challenges and opportunities before you with commitment and hope worthy of the dedication and sacrifices of those who went before you. Creatively build on the faith foundations they laid. Open windows and doors to the future.

Beloved community, God has chosen you to assist in accomplishing divine purposes if you will choose to live out of your better natures and potential. Deepen your faith. Refine your sensitivity to the guidance of the Spirit so that you are not distracted by other influences. Explore your scriptures with openness to new insights that will come. Increase your compassion and generosity. Strengthen your relationships so the peace of Christ may be magnified through you.

Have courage and hope. Gather in the gifts of all ages and cultures so the ministries of the body can become whole and fully alive. Others are being prepared around the world to join their efforts with yours, if you will move ahead according to the direction offered to you by the Spirit. Amen.

My testimony is that discipleship is not finding the answers.  It is finding the questions worth asking.

Likewise, salvation is not simply life after death.  Eternal life begins with a life worth living.

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Be Good To Yourself

Posted in Faith & Politics, Family with tags , on April 3, 2009 by mattfrizzell

Today, feel good.  Unemployment is at a 25 year high.  Political conservatives and poison pundits self-righteously hope the ’s stimulus plan fails after creating record deficits with control of the White House and congress for the last 8 years.  To boot, I just got a message on Facebook from a friend who’s struggling.  We live in a world that seeks to profit on our insecurity, spiritual faults, and emotional despair.

Resist.

Play Journey’s Be Good to Yourself. Turn it up.  Bounce around your bedroom.  End with a responsible beverage of your choice.

Be good to yourself when nobody else will
Oh be good to yourself
You’re walkin’ a highwire, caught in a crossfire
Oh be good to yourself

For the Love of God, rock on.

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microchurch

Posted in Church, Discipleship & Ministry with tags , on March 23, 2009 by mattfrizzell

This is the paradox.   Neither Jesus nor Christian faith is going out of style.  Not really.  I’m going by memory, but as I recall, people such as the Pew Trust, sociologist Christian Smith, and even the Gallup folks all tell us people do believe in God, do want to know what God and the scriptures to do with their lives.

The problem is that how we go about those things and to whom do we turn that is changing.

Specifically, denominationalism and corporate denominations are less and less important to faith.  I, for one, experience it most everyday as a denominational minister.  I am 35 and I’ve known the church that helped raise me and shape my view of God and the world be in decline all of my life.  My personal research helped me understand that officially, membership in my church in the U.S. began declining in 1980.  The trend remains in a downhill slope since.

By Namaska on Flickr

By Namaska on Flickr

Church-going practices actually started changing decades before.  Many babyboomers were baptized in the churches their parents brought them to, but huge percentages didn’t remain actively involved.  The 1960’s, the crisis of social and moral authority of churches in the sexual revolution and Vietnam War, all contributed to radical questioning about the real importance of churches as institutions.  We live in the wake of those questions today.

Alot more could be said.  But I want to cut to the chase.

As a minister, I’m not ultimately interested in saving the institutional church.   Institutions are important.   In the end, they can and serve the purpose of church.  But, I don’t confuse the gospel for institutional religiosity.

By kwerfeldein on Flickr

By kwerfeldein on Flickr

I do, however, believe in community.  I’m with the bible on this one.  I believe in the inseparable union of faith and human community.  It’s a biblical thing.  God and the Gospel go together, just like faith, salvation, and your present relationships.  I know God is real because of, not in spite of, our relationships with others.  Without relationships, Jesus’ call to discipleship and everything he says about enemies, peace, and love are just metaphysical niceities, religious ideas that go well on embroidered pillows and wall hangings.

I don’t believe the essential importance of Christ’s call to faith and spiritual community is not ultimately being threatened right now.  What is being threatened is the way we go about it.  Institutional denominations, corporate denominationalism, even Sunday Morning service are no longer the spiritual anchors they used to be.  Jobs, family, financial demands, and civics demand alot more flexibility from the church.  Churches, right or wrong, have to compete.  And, while this cultural shift may be a significant loss for America’s churches – they ultimately don’t have to be.  Think about it.  The opportunity we face is staggering.  We have the opportunity to see God unleashed into new forms, new spiritual practices, and new ways of gathering.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18:20

One of the struggles we seem to have as “church folks” is how to break out of the church model.  How do we break out of the idea that God is more than a Sunday thing?  How do we take church with us wherever we go?…put it in our pockets?…and make the blessings of our faith community available everyday?

I want to make a small contribution to solving this problem.  It’s a small idea.  A humble offering.  But, ultimately I think its just as much as part of discipleship as bible study and Sunday Morning.  I call it microchurch.

Microchurch is easy.  You can do it in 5 minutes, even less.  You can do microchurch on twitter, on facebook, at work, or between classes.  All you need in another person.  Microchurch gives you a chance to breathe a minute (Spirit means “breath”), remember who blessed us with our day, and let faith put things in perspective.

Microchurch is two or three people doing these four things.

1.  Gather.  Make your congregation of two or three.  Find a microchurch partner.  Meet in the hall between classes or do it over lunch.  If no one’s around, do it with who follows you on twitter.

By G. & A.Jimenez on Flickr

By G. & A.Jimenez on Flickr

2.  Rejoice or Release. Then, rejoice in a God-moment or release a burden.   This is like the “Good News” and “Prayer concerns” part of your service.  But, it’s simpler.  Tell about something or someone in whom you saw the living Christ today or since you last met.   Maybe it was in the sunrise, or a kind word between strangers.   Whatever.  Just, rejoice about something.  Or, release.  Release a burden you’re caring.  It doesn’t have to be a mountain.  Molehills are fine.  Something small, or something big.  Maybe you’re worried about the way something you said came across.  Maybe you’re having relationship trouble, or a friend is really depressed.  Whatever it is, release it.  Bear your burden with another.   Rejoice or release.  Do it whenever you can.   Faith is exercised in community.  Do it everyday.

2.  Pray. Next, pray.  Lift up the burden you released or thank God for your day.  Force yourself to make God’s Spirit a part of your mindset.  Talk to God.  Even if it is for 30 seconds or a moment of silence.   Talk and listen.  Remember the One who created you, gave you this moment, and Who is the hope of all things.

3.  Resolve.  Finally, resolve to commit an act of discipleship!  Resolve to do something for the Kingdom that day.  Jesus preached about his Father’s business.  The Kingdom is hidden in little acts of faith.  Think about your relationships.  Really consider forgiving someone.  “Forgive us as we forgive others.”  (Matthew 6:12)   Or, break the mold and hang out with the bruised, broken-hearted, or outcast.   Sit with someone new at lunch.     Vow to do something for the environment.   Sacrifice a coffee and make a small donation.  In short, live your discipleship in some small way that day.  Tell your microchurch partner what you’re going to do.  They are your accountability partner for the day.  Faith without actions is empty!  (James 2:17)  Resolve to do something for Christ.  If you want, at your next microchurch, you can tell what happened.  You’ve got something to “rejoice!”

So there it is:   Rejoice/Release, Pray, Resolve.  5 minutes.

It doesn’t matter what order you do it in.  Just do it.  It can take just 5 minutes.   You can do it on twitter.   When you do, you’re doing church.  You’re living your faith.  You’re growing in discipleship.  You’re doing something terribly biblical:  putting together faith and life together.

Microchurch won’t replace bible study, praise & worship, or breaking bread together.  But, it’ll let you have church wherever, whenever, every day.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18:20

11 Comments »

Sign of the Times

Posted in Church, Faith & Politics, Family on March 18, 2009 by mattfrizzell

I have this feeling – a kind of prophetic sense, if you will – that the world is turning upside-down and inside-out.   It’s not that anything is strange.  It’s just the way the world works.  The race is on.  It’s always on.  But there’s no clear start or finish line.   Someone, one day, just started running to get ahead.  Now we all have to keep up.

No one asks why anymore.  No one says, “um…where is the world going?”   Or, better, “Why am I trying to keep up?”   There’s no time.  Even churches have stopped asking.   No one has a good answer.

Liberals don’t have the answer because including everyone and everyone’s opinions makes finding an answer either impossible or inefficient.  The answers of yesteryear have given way to committees and processes.  That means spiritual questions like “what are we doing!?” either go unanswered or the answers gets stuck in committee.

Conservatives fair a little better.  But only because they keep pounding traditional answers to spiritual questions fewer and fewer people are asking.   It’s a scary world that keeps turning upside down and inside out.  There’s real appeal in the feeling like you’ve got all the answers to the life’s true questions.  Certainty is an easy sell.  It’s comforting.   So, if the bible says it, then it must be God’s law.  Now you have everything you need to either deny the harder questions or judge anyone asking them.

Fishy.

Elementary schools are saddled with the job to make sure kids keep up, today.  Teachers, students…they’re all under pressure to measure up.   Social studies, art, and literature are pushed to the side to prioritize math and science.   Probably because social studies, art, and literature are the fields that usually deal with those gooey inconvenient questions, like “Why?”, “What is it all for?” and “Where are we going?”

Instead, kids are driven to take tests and learn math and science.  Not for their own sake, but for the sake of keeping up.  Kids, schools, medicine…all have to keep up with the cult of “the new,” especially technology.   We want to live longer, find ways to text and drive at the same time, fly a missile through some terrorist’s front door, eat what we want and not worry about cancer.    This is America.  This….this  is freedom!  To protect it takes mastering the instrumental logic of science and the fruit of its mastery -  technology.  It means exacting control.  Finding ways to improve.   Remember, someone started running one day, just to get ahead.  Now, it’s global.  We have to keep up with our enemies, so we have an arms race.   Someone else’s 2nd grader is getting all A’s and reading chapter books, so we push our kids to do more.

We do it to ourselves.

Why?  The answer is on TV and our local supermarket.  In a market economy, everyone must compete.   It’s become the logic of our society.  You, me, the kids.  We gotta keep up, keep things moving.  There are winners and losers in everything – even in dieting.

Sports is our true spirituality.  It’s rituals convey true religion.  Our true beliefs.  Think about it.  It’s all about the game.  You’re either making a living playing the game, beating the clock, competing, getting ahead or just getting through it.  Or, you watch.   Some are in the game 9-5, 2-10, even 7-11.   They watch clock or the scoreboard.  Sales reports, the S&P or Dow Jones, our credit limit.  Then, go home.   Work, leisure, and back again.   This world has a rhythm.  Some work it hard to get ahead.  Some have more toys and vacation better than others.

What’s the point?

That’s one of those inconvenient ooey-goey artsy-fartsy abstract spiritual questions.  Why ask questions about something over which you have no control?

Most people think having faith is making plans, doing your best, and hoping things works out.    And, to some degree, it is.  There are winners and losers.  Some lose more than others, but not because they are losers.  It’s because the rules of the game aren’t fair and not everyone can keep up.  Some just can’t get ahead.

It’s the signs of the times.

With things spinning out of control, true faith isn’t letting go.  It’s not giving up.  It’s stopping, sabotaging the game, and asking “where’s all this going?”  “Who started this game?”  “Why must there be winners and losers?”  “What happens to those who can’t keep up?”

Jesus had no strategic plan.   Though we like to read the bible with the idea that Jesus had great determination and control, in the end Jesus just chose not to compete.  He didn’t keep up.  He did he give up.   He had something else in mind.   He hung out with the losers, the unpicked, the rejects and bench warmers.   He was criticized by high-minded spectators.   Why?  He didn’t play the game, and yet they knew he was the only game in town.

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Revolutionary Road: Hopeless Emptiness

Posted in Faith & Politics, Movies on March 2, 2009 by mattfrizzell

I saw Revolutionary Road yesterday.   I am sorry it took me this long to see the movie.   I found it exceptional because it hit so close to home.

I read the movie as a profound social commentary on American life.  I took me beyond my normal feelings to the edge of despair.    The movie opens us up to the madness that lives just below the surface of the American dream.  It reveals it in existential categories.

The passage of the American family is told from the perspective of a couple, the Wheelers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet).  It moves from their late youth, where they met over liquor at a post-WWII party, to adulthood.  The passage moves from the hope of youth and young love to disillusionment, and eventually a level of helplessness and emptiness that teeters on being able to be put into words.   The Wheelers are trapped in the same world we are, between powerful social pressures and personal expectations, where sanity lives on the surface and is decided by what people are willing to say and hear.  The whole story is too real for too many people I know.  The tag line of Revolutionary Road says it well, “How do you break free without breaking apart?”

By the end of the movie, its point gets lost if you find peace by pointing blame on either of the characters.    And, this is not incidental.  Pointing blame, of course, is the trap sustaining the illusion of American life.  Whether in a failed relationship, upside down in a house you can’t afford, or politically claiming the moral high ground in a questionable war – a relentless sense of entitlement is ultimately American.   I hope moviegoers don’t escape the power of this moving by going there.   You’ll miss its profound point if you try to escape its despair by putting responsibility for that empty feeling on someone or something else.

If you’ve not seen the movie, Revolutionary Road is the story of a couple, the Wheelers, trying to make sense of their suburban life in the 1950’s.   After saving enough money to risk living their dreams, they plan to move Europe.   From this point, the adventure to find a life worth living – where a man can spend his time doing what he loves and a woman is free to work, if she wants to – begins to crumble.   After redeeming their love for life by seizing the opportunity, Winslet’s character, April Wheeler, reveals that she’s pregnant.  DiCaprio’s character, Frank Wheeler, a hollow man grasping for meaning in an affair while working in the company his father worked for 20 years, is given the chance to take the promotion of a lifetime.   The dream to truly live and move to Europe slowly gives way to insecurities, the insecurities of actually living out their dreams.   Pressures, both personal and social, begin to reveal the fragility of their trust, both in each other and their happiness.  The tragedy unfolds through their relationship, which increasingly fractures with each attempt to salvage it.

I believe the inner structure of the movie is revealed in the character of John Givings (Michael Shannon), a neighbor’s adult son who is purported to be mentally unstable.   John’s mother, Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), is desperate over her son’s condition.  Popping in one day, Helen asks the Wheelers to have a visit with her son, John.   The doctor’s believe it might “do him some good.”  His PhD in Mathematics and the fact that he’s on leave from the local psychiatric hospital indicate something of how brilliance coincides with insanity.    John’s character depicts the simultaneity of both reason and absurdity.  This tension sustains the drama of the movie.

On John’s and his parents’ first visit, the exceptionalism of the Wheelers comes through in the grace with which they interact with John.  John’s insanity, if it is truly insane, is his brutal indiscretion with the norms of decency.  Entering the Wheeler’s home, he makes a quip about being a lunatic.   John may be mentally ill by standards, but he’s profoundly aware of the situation he is in.   Given up on appearences, it isn’t long before John begins asking invasive personal questions.  His mother’s attempt to control him bounce off John in his obvious hatred for his mother.  You begin to wonder whether John is a victim of this world, which won’t accept the unacceptable, or he simply understands the absurdity of appearing acceptable.  There are hints that John’s true sin is that he is a prophet of the obvious, a prophet in a mad world that hides its insanity in institutions.    (Michel Foucault!)   What makes the whole scene work is that it’s hard to tell whether John’s psyche has really been torn apart by a toxic mix of his intelligence and his mother’s embarrassment, or by the electroshock therapy he’s received, or whether he simply lacks the skill to to separate what he should and should not say.  It’s undecideable whether he is legitimately mentally deficient because of his inability to sustain social interaction, or whether he is warped by his circumstance…or whether he is the only sane one among them.

The most telling dialogue in the movie happens during a walk in the woods outside the Wheeler’s home.   It is John’s first visit to the Wheelers.   Accompanied by his parents, in a moment of awkwardness Frank suggests they get some “fresh air.”  In their walk, John tears into Frank and April about their plans to go to Europe.   The answer develops into a moment of awkward honesty.  Frank admits the “hopeless emptiness” they are trying to escape.   John’s demeanor immediately becomes less manic, as if he’s stumbled onto a moment of clarity.    It is a moment that haunts the rest of the  movie. 

“And what’s in Paris?” John asks as they walk.

“A different way of life,” April responds.

“So maybe we are running… We’re running from the hopeless emptiness of the whole life here.”  Frank concedes.

John pauses.  “The hopeless emptiness? Now, you’ve said it.  Plenty of people are on to the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness… Wow.”

John continues walking.  Frank and April watch him go.

This scene launches the tragedy that unfolds throughout the rest of the movie.  John seems the only enlightened one.  He possesses both the courage and the knowledge of hopelessness.   And, he keeps going….right back to the psychiatric hospital.   The rest of the movie tells the tragic tale of the road more traveled.  Frank and April go back home.  They never go to Europe.

To say any more would spoil the movie.  I’d rather you watch the movie yourself.

Of course, there are those who won’t see Revolutionary Road as the tragic tail of middle class Americana I do.   It tells it in existential proportions.   This is obvious in the end of the movie, which speaks for itself.   For those who find peace by faulting one of the characters in the movie – either in Frank’s extra-marital affairs and inability to get a grip on his sense of self, or April’s childish fantasies – they, I think, have missed the point.

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A Message to Chicago Mission Center

Posted in Community of Christ, Discipleship & Ministry on February 3, 2009 by mattfrizzell

Chicago Mission Center, this message is for you.

Below is a personal message I’ve felt inspired to share with you about who we are and our journey ahead.  I encourage you to listen and listen to it again.  Share it with anyone who will listen.

To Listen to this Message (CLICK HERE)

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  • To Download a personal copy, Right Click and Select “Save link as…”

To Download a copy of the text of this message (CLICK HERE)

  • Download and Share with your congregations (File: .pdf)

We are coming together.  We have a long way to go.   But, with our eyes set on Christ and seizing upon his ministry, we will continue to grow in the Spirit and receive direction.

Courageously, let the Spirit lead.

Lord Jesus, of you, we will sing on our journey.

Matt Frizzell, Chicago Mission Center

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