For two years in a row now, Rob and I have taught a January interim class at Calvin called Pop Culture in the Empire. With mostly first-year students, we take a tour of the biblical narrative and contemporary society through the lenses of empire vs. the Kingdom of God. You can read more about it here and here. We certainly don't want to expose students to huge systemic problems and then leave them with no sense of hope or rootedness in the biblical narrative. Toward that end, we left them with a blessing yesterday at the end of our last class.
May you Know Truth:
Not the small truth that you can contain in a glass,
Consume,
Throw at others;
But big Truth like an ocean of water
That sustains a vibrant riot of life,
That allows you to float if you just
Surrender.
And not the small knowing that reduces ideas
Infinitely larger than the human skull
To brain-sized bits,
Mastered, packaged and asphyxiated;
But big Knowing that is like friendship,
Knowing that is love,
An eternal process
That also embraces being known.
May you Know Truth.
May you Act in Hope:
Not the small hope
Blowing out the birthday candles
With a wish for what can be wrapped,
Owned, insured, destroyed, replaced;
But the big Hope
Of a suffering servant
Who will walk through walls to find us,
Even in our fear,
Even in our utter hopelessness,
Hope of a world without end,
Hope that even death could not destroy.
And not the small action
That is an end in itself,
Selfless and yet somehow serving a self
That would otherwise be overwhelmed
With guilt and shame.
But the big Action
That is love bearing fruit in this world
For all to taste, touch, smell, hear, see,
Action that nourishes,
Action that is an invitation to a resurrection party
Accepted with compassion and delight.
May you Act in Hope.
Waking up is hard to do
But once we see
How deep the suffering goes
How high the purpose of human beings
Created in the image of the Creator
What is sleep, but settling for so much less?
What is sleep, but surrendering to a tiny, lazy savior?
What is sleep, but biding time in such boredom
That eternity becomes bad news?
So, friends, may you be fully awake,
And in that wakefulness:
May you love beyond reason.
May you hope beyond what's realistic.
May you find true pleasure in what pleases God.
May your hunger and thirst for shalom
Be satisfied by the Bread of Life
Embodied in the bread of earth.
