Every Good Endeavor and The Freedom We Have in Work

This year has been one characterized by highs and lows and apathy and excitement. But I suppose if I turn back the clock and try and scrutinize any year of my life I could probably say much the same thing. Still, the here and the now feels just as much like that as I can remember and the major reason I hold this sentiment is because of work. I came off a wonderful, restful, community-filled weekend on a Church Men's Retreat in Palm Desert only to feel like I got hit with a sledgehammer during the week.

In one sense, it's a tremendous blessing that I have a good job in a good environment and having what I can see as a positive impact on society. But sometimes that doesn't make getting through the day any easier or the prospect of a new week any less daunting. If I'm honest if sometimes feels like I don't have anything to offer and work is a pointless ordeal. That's what goes through my brain on any given day.

But recently aside from going through C.S. Lewises Mere Christianity once again, I have been methodically reading sections of Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor. And what is that book about you might ask? Precisely what I have been grappling with this year. Work.

The first part of the book is about what God's view of work is and it helps to give us a vision for what work can be like. Listening to some of Keller's sermons in the past on these topics proved enlightening then and the information is a good reminder that God created us to work and create and cultivate for the betterment of society and for human flourishing. Those are inherently good things that lift up any type of work and give it an inherent worth that is placed there by our Creator.

Still, recently I have been struggling to maintain that vision and I have been dealing with the next stage explored in the book which are the drawbacks of work because it was ruined as an institution after the Fall. Things changed and that's part of why now work can be so difficult and taxing on our daily lives as human beings. That's just the way it is. It can be life-giving but also strenuous and difficult.

Recently the idea of idea of excellence in all aspects of work has been something I've been wrestling with. Because I know that part of my witness is the very fact that I want to love other people well by building relationships and encouraging others daily. I want to live my life with integrity and intentionality that is open about my spiritual convictions. But more recently I've felt like my ability to witness has taken a hit because I realized that perhaps I'm not a cut above my coworkers as much as I wanted to be. On a practical level, on the level that they see most clearly, perhaps I am not so superior.

First of all, that's an extremely humbling which is hard in itself if not extremely necessary. But I also felt in some small sense that I was failing. And the desire to excel and be better is good but that illusion of reaching perfection some type of self-actualization that sets me apart is absurd. Returning back to Keller's analysis of work he wrote something that spoke exactly into my struggles recently. It encouraged me and put a word to what I was feeling. I realized something profound:

God extends Common Grace to ALL people.

In light of that Keller writes the following,

"Without an understanding of common grace, Christians will have trouble understanding why non-Christians so often exceed Christians morally and in wisdom. Properly understood, the doctrine of sin means that believers are never as good as our true worldview should make us. Similarly, the doctrine of grace means that unbelievers are never as messed up as their false worldview should make them."  

BOOM. Enough said. If I can comprehend that reality, that frees me up so much again. I know that I have been saved by grace and that frames my whole perspective. But the God of the universe in his immense love for his Creation extends grace to all peoples indiscriminately. That's awesome and with that freedom, I hope to continue to grind, stumble, and crawl my way through my life as I strive to live a life engaging with a culture in a way that never succumbs to dualism. Because there is no dichotomy between spiritual and temporal estates. They all fall under the grace of God.

All the Glory to Him,

Silence: Learning from Endo and Scorsese

If we can take Martin Scorsese's varied film career as a reflection of human life than his completion of his long-awaited passion project Silence is not all that surprising. He's crafted numerous classics, countless cultural touchstones some spiritual, some historical, and some incredibly human. 

But at this point in his career it seems like he has nothing left to prove to us as his audience and maybe at this point in life, if nothing else, we could do well to try and learn from someone like him. Because given the climate with funding and the like, Scorsese could not have made such a film just for other people or money or acclaim. He must have made it, at least partially, for himself.  

Man has long wrestled with God since the days of Jacob. Nothing is new under the sun in a sense. And Scorsese by way of Shunsaku Endo is doing a truly remarkable thing to consider these very questions. I admire him for having the wherewithal to even begin to tackle this material. 

Coincidentally this is also a very faithful adaptation of Endo's novel Silence, a historical fiction based on true events about two Portuguese Priests who head to 17th century Japan in order to spread their Christian faith--a faith that already has approximately 300,000 believers but is under fierce attack by the Japanese magistrates and for good reason. 

They often are lacking cultural understanding meaning their message is neither contextualized or delivered in such a way that is helpful to the people. The question is asked whether the faith missionaries brought is even the same anymore or do you simply trust that it will reach the people you supposed. In this case, the Christian "Gospel." 

But delve into this issue and doubters can beg the question, can the Truth (capital T) be universal? There's certain similarities between religions. From a cursory level, you can either draw up the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism or cast them far apart. Father Ferreira finally concedes that doing good is enough. It leads to human flourishing but at the detriment to your beliefs. What are we to do with that dilemma? Most importantly of all, potentially the most volatile and insidious question of all can we still be worthy of love if we have doubted, turned away, or recanted. 

But this is not a film to stew in or even a film to view alone. It is meant to be seen together, ruminated over in tandem, and considered with a certain amount of thoughtfulness. It asks for its viewer to be open, to be aware, and if need be, do their own amount of soul searching. Are their questions that you've never been willing to confront? And this goes for anyone from any type of background, belief, or point of view. 

For Christians, this undoubtedly would be a tough picture because it confronts their doubts head on. For those who do not consider themselves all that religious, it throws you right into the dilemma of a spiritual man and demands you at least consider the questions placed in front of you. 

Humility of these Japanese is astounding and the utter hopelessness of the priests at times is equally telling. It flips the paradigm that we expect. However, I think we would all do well to watch this film and always revert back to scripture. 

For me it recalls the passage from the Old Testament in 1 Kings:
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 

If there's any great hope we can take out of this film or life in general, it is that God is always present even when we think otherwise. Even now God is working in Japan--in the hearts of the Japanese and, yes, even in my own heart, as hardened as it is sometimes. 

I would encourage others interested in these topics to read Silence and Makoto Fujimura's companion piece Silence & Beauty. But above all, revert all these texts back to scripture. Because that's where we can see God's true heart for his people.