Discipline

The last year I have been leading a women's bible study. We started going through 1 Corinthians and I eventually asked if they wanted the group to have worksheets while working through a book of the Bible.

They loved the idea. So, I took a model I learned in school and I changed the language to fit within the group's framework. I had all the group members buy a copy of The Bible book by book, and we started on 1 John together.

Every week we did some exegetical and contextual work. Every week we tried to immerse the group within the understanding that the Holy Spirit is crucial to our understanding of scripture. Every week I challenged their old framework. It was a lot of work but slowly I saw some of their old framework shift and take a new shape.

Now, many people would consider this discipline a waste of time. A lot of leaders in ministry focus on service and outreach to challenge their people. I think that is a wonderful discipline to practice. Some of the most convicting moments within my life have been in step with some sort of service activity.

However, I will defend the discipline of challenging theological frameworks using scripture even after the grave. I find it crucially important to our faith because while we will meet Jesus in service to others, without the eyes and ears to recognize what He looks like we will likely miss a holy moment.

Challenging this group's interpretative framework was not motivated by pride or Biblical arrogance. I am not foolish enough to believe that I have the key to an interpretative formula, but I am aware enough to know that the Kingdom's foundation is the many different views of faith that our ancestors experienced in their own life.

Hebrews 11 paints this ancestral illustration of faith that we get to be apart of as Kingdom people. Every person in that faith list had a different experience with God and the Kingdom. And every person within that list had a whole framework that had to be shaken, twisted, and molded into a framework that could glimpse more and more of the Kingdom.

Moses was not ready to lead the people into the promise land when God called him. God had to rework Moses' framework over a period of time to bring him to a place of leadership and understanding.

The women in my group, me included, have been immersed in a specific framework which limits our understanding of the Triune God. However, through the story we have been given within scripture, through our experience, through other Kingdom people, and through our Christian tradition we place ourselves in a place where God continues to shake, stir, twist and mold our framework.

Our Bible studies are a wonderful example of this discipline. As we are constantly being challenged with a Gospel that does not fit within our White, Middle class, slightly racist, American, gender specific framework.

As we meet we challenge each other to seek the story within scripture and to wrestle with the faith of our ancestors.

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A glimpse

I love coming home and looking through old photo albums. I actually just was given a photo album for Christmas that brought me to a reflection on why I love photographs. I often come in when I am at my parent's home and I mill through the photographs from when we were kids. I also love to look at photos of my folks as kids. One of the reasons I love photos is because it's a moment captured within time. Photographs reveal so much about the moment captured. The fashion style popular at the time, the relational dynamic, the age, and the action of the moment. I don't look back on the past and mourn the lost time, or wish for my time now to illustrate something similar to that life. I do look at photos to see who I was, to find my role within my family in a sense. Photographs give us glimpses of a story. However, interpretation is crucial in looking at these captured moments for everyone within the picture usually has a different feeling about that time in their life. I look at our family photos very differently then my siblings do, because I was at a different stage of life. My family photos remind me of our Holy Scriptures. We are often given glimpses of story and often times we interpret these glimpses differently as we grow throughout our lives. A part of a story means something different to us at age fifteen then at age thirty. When we experience the story for ourselves throughout our many days we get the opportunity to get a glimpse of the Kindom in our Holy Scriptures. So, what story have you been reflecting on these days?

This year has been a year of changes for the Lawrence family. We have been busy and searching this last year and it has been a fruitful, hard, challenging year thus far. Last December I quit my full time job to go back to Seminary to become a chaplain and that was life changing, in many ways. I finished my first summer and got a part job job at my favorite coffee shop over the summer. This last year has been a great year for our marriage, as we have gotten closer and have finally started a real faith journey together. Which is probably why we got pregnant in September! We were both shocked to find out we were expecting, but we are both excited for this new chapter in our lives to start. Right after my 24th Birthday(I know I am in mid twenties yuck!) I attended one of Waylon's prayer services. Every Wednesday he has a prayer service for the church where he leads them through three different scriptures and through three different times of prayer. It is a nice silent respite in the middle of the week. Well, we were in 1 Samuel reading over the life of Hannah. As we were reading through her life situation her character and her faithfulness struck me in a very convicting way. If you don't know much about Hannah, she was a woman that was married to a guy named Elkanah, who was head over heels in love with her. Elkanah had two wives and Hannah was the one that he truly loved. However, Hannah could not have children and this was a great burden to her. In Hannah's time having kids was the main role of a woman who was married. It was an honor and a great responsibility to bear children and to bear a lot of children. If you had a whole ton of kids you would have been considered a pretty important woman of that time. Hannah's sister wife, if I can use a cultural term, was a bitch. She was always being mean to Hannah, because Hannah was barren. For years Hannah dealt with ridicule and insecurity. Normally a person who is suffering cries out to God. I do. It is not recorded that Hannah spoke to God about her troubles until 1 Samuel 1. Until Hannah is so distraught that she cries out in such a physical and emotional way that the priest in the temple thinks she is drunk! Hannah comes to God in complete vulnerability and asks God to remember her in her misery. The Lord listens and remembers Hannah and blesses her with a son. Hannah responds to the Lord with a powerful prayer to the Lord. Through her faithfulness and trust in the Lord, and through her experience with the Living and active God she responds in a powerful and prophetic way. Hannah prayed: I'm bursting with God-news! I'm walking on air. I'm laughing at my rivals. I'm dancing my salvation. 2-5 Nothing and no one is holy like God, no rock mountain like our God. Don't dare talk pretentiously— not a word of boasting, ever! For God knows what's going on. He takes the measure of everything that happens. The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength. The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while the hungry are getting second helpings. The barren woman has a houseful of children, while the mother of many is bereft. 6-10 God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, Restoring dignity and respect to their lives— a place in the sun! For the very structures of earth are God's; he has laid out his operations on a firm foundation. He protectively cares for his faithful friends, step by step, but leaves the wicked to stumble in the dark. No one makes it in this life by sheer muscle! God's enemies will be blasted out of the sky, crashed in a heap and burned. God will set things right all over the earth, he'll give strength to his king, he'll set his anointed on top of the world! After I encountered Hannah and her story in July I felt that God was preparing my heart for a little Lawrence. However, Waylon and I felt that it would be better to wait a year before we starting trying and a month and half later we were surprised with a baby. While it wasn't an immaculate conception I do feel like the Lord had a definite role to play in this whole process. I know I do not relate to Hannah's years of being barren I do find her prayer to be encouraging and to be proof of an existential response to an eternal reality. As I passed my twelfth week of being pregnant and I will enter into my second semester in a couple of weeks Hannah's story has also pointed me towards the Immaculate Conception and the role of Mary within the Kingdom Story. As Advent approaches I continue to reflect on Mary and Jesus and the story that changed the world.