Jesus: Carpenter or Construction Worker?

Imagine a carpentry shop. What are the images that come to mind? Imagine a crew of builders working on at a construction site. What comes to mind? What comes to mind when you hear the phrase, Jesus was a carpenter? What changes if you think of Jesus working for years on a building crew? A recent article I read by Jordan Monson persuaded me that “builder” or “construction worker” is a better translation than carpenter for the word in Matt. 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Now, instead of just thinking, "oh, those Bible scholars, always digging for details to argue about," I urge you to take a few minutes and join me in reflecting on what difference it might make whether we think of Jesus working at a carpenter’s bench or on a construction crew.

 I will briefly mention some of the main points in Monson's argument and then share some of his thoughts and my own on why it matters.

 “Carpenter” is not technically a wrong translation of tektōn, but the word is broader than that—more the sense of a builder who uses various materials—wood, stone, metal, thatch, plaster, etc. “Carpenter” may have seemed like the most fitting word for Bible translators in 17th-Century England, surrounded by woods and buildings made of wood, but does it make sense in Galilee? There were not many trees around Nazareth; hence little work was done with wood.

Monson, does not, however, just base his argument on building materials available for Jesus the tektōn. He asks the astute question, from where does Jesus draw his examples and metaphors? He often spoke of farming, occasionally of fishing, but not of carpentry—only one mention of wood and sawdust (Matt 7:3). But, Jesus often mentioned stones, foundations, and rocks. That points to him being a mason, working with stones.

Like other builders of the time, Jesus likely did not just work on small projects in his village. He and his father probably traveled to the nearby Sepphoris and worked with others on large building projects that Herod and others built. Jesus, at times, would have worked under the authority of head builders and perhaps had less-skilled laborers under his authority. This work experience shows up in his teaching. Jesus talks about wages, managers, hiring and firing, and building projects.

What difference does it make that instead of spending time cutting boards and hammering nails in a carpentry shop, Jesus, God incarnate, was chiseling, carrying, and laying stones?

It is easier to romanticize Jesus the carpenter meditatively working on a wood project with the sun streaming through the window. Few people plaster walls or build cement-block walls as a hobby, but many love spending time creating something out of wood at a home workbench. Thus it is easier to turn Jesus the carpenter into a more dignified respectable job.

The reality is that tektōn at that time, whatever building materials used, was a lowly position. Monson writes, "Jesus was not elite. His trade was not respected. Early church leaders of an aristocratic bent found Jesus' trade to be embarrassing. They wanted to distance him from it. The first substantive polemic against Christianity attaches the respectability of Jesus precisely on this account. In the second century, the pagan philosopher Celsus disparaged Jesus as 'only a tektōn'" (42-43).

God, through Jesus, did not just practice solidarity with and bring dignity to the marginalized through a few meals during his ministry. He spent years of living, working, and eating with the lowly. Thus, thinking of this word correctly enhances the significance of the incarnation for many who work in low-status jobs. God was quite literally one of them. What is the import for these people that Jesus was a construction worker? How might it challenge higher status people and their practice of viewing people differently based on their jobs?

There are multiple other reasons why the incarnation matters for us. One is that through Jesus’ being a human, God has experienced the joys and sufferings of humans. To move Jesus out of the quiet carpentry shop into the rough and tumble world of a construction crew broadens the sense of what he experienced. Think of conflicts you have had with co-workers, frustrations with a supervisor, drudgery on the job, unfair pay, or being totally drained after a long day. God incarnate likely experienced all this and more. Jesus experienced, as we do, many ways that human sin complicates the work-day world and causes suffering and pain. We pray to a God who does not just know about but has experienced what we go through. I invite you to take some time consciously praying to the God who worked as a stonemason on a building crew.

What are other ways that your thoughts or feelings about Jesus are enriched by thinking of him on a construction crew?

Based on: “The Stonemason the Builders Rejected” by Jordan K. Monson, Christianity Today, Dec, 2021: 40-43.

To further explore the significance of Jesus' humanity and divinity watch two 15 minute videos at the bottom of this page on my website.

Passing God’s test or commands of love?

As children, many of you probably sang the catchy tune, with fun hand motions, of the wise man building his house on the rock and the foolish man on the sand. The song conjured in my mind a house built on a beach—a dumb thing to do. When I have read the text in Matthew or Luke I bring that childhood image with me and, frankly, give little attention to the short parable. Recently, I saw it differently, but before I get to that, another song.

One evening my wife, Lynn, and I started singing songs from our youth-group past; one led to another. I found myself signing:

Do you ever search your heart 

as you watch the day depart 

Is there something way down deep 

you try to hide 

If this day should be end 

and eternity begin 

when the book is open wide 

would the Lord be satisfied? 

Is he satisfied, is he satisfied 

is he satisfied with me 

have I done my best 

have I stood the test 

Is he satisfied with me? 

Our daughter Julia, who was visiting, disbelieving, asks, “You sang that? What did that do to you?”

 It is a song about not falling short, measuring up. What is the character of this God? What is the purpose of commands given by this God?  Evaluative tool, a test. Julia was right, a bad song, toxic, but in another way not outlandish, normal. It displays a common view of the relationship between humans and God.

The parable of two housebuilders comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. What happens if we combine the song from my childhood and the song from my youth and read the parable in light of those songs? The point of the parable becomes: don’t be dumb and ignore God’s commands. Watch out; you better measure up! 

When referring to the commands in Jesus' sermon, many people refer to the upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God. True, Jesus’ commands contrast the ways of the world. But if we only look at the upside-downness of the content of the commands, we have not done enough. Let us also recognize the radical contrast between the God giving the commands and the typical religious ways of thinking about commands and God.

Joel Green, commenting on the commands of the sermon on the plain, describes them as “Practices determined by the gracious character of God”  (The Gospel of Luke, 280). A gracious God loves enemies, calls us to do the same; a gracious God is forgiving, calls us to do the same; a gracious God gives without expecting something in return, calls us to do the same.  

The commands are gracious in another way. Because God loves us and loves others, God gives these upside-down kingdom commands.  Jesus’ exhortations come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Now let us turn to our parable of the two housebuilders in Luke 6. What is the key point? Jesus says, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them” (6:47). The emphasis is on obeying, putting the words into practice. But perhaps the most important word in this verse is “me.” Who is calling for the actions? Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Now back to my childhood image, is this parable about a person doing a dumb thing, building on a beach? It helps a bit that Luke's version doesn't say "sand," but even more helpful is to bring the lens of loving upside-downness to the parable.

“That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house” (Luke 6:48-49).

One dug deeply to get to rock. The second person is not doing the ridiculous thing. He does the lazy thing. The ground looks ok, solid enough. He hopes it will work.

Listening and not obeying may appear to be ok. One might think, “Why obey these difficult, strange commands? I’ll be ok.” Jesus says, "no, don’t be fooled. You are better off obeying.”

The one telling the parable loves us. Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Based on the song of my youth, what would motivate me to obey? Fear of falling short and not satisfying God’s standards. How about based on gracious ethics? Obey because floods will come, better to be part of a loving, caring community.

To say they are loving commands does not mean they are easy. Like the hard work of digging deep in the dirt, they are challenging but worth it.

Out of love, Jesus calls us to obey the commands of Luke 6.

From the security of God’s love, we are called to love those hard to love, even enemies –who might that be for you?

God has given us so much; we are called to share from what we have received, to give, to lend without expecting a return.

As forgiven people, we are called to forgive. Who might God be calling you to forgive?

God receives us with a warm embrace, does not look down on us judgmentally. Jesus calls us to do the same in this sermon. What are judgmental thoughts he might call you to let go of?

Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

The Need to Hear the Good News Again, and Again

People often think of biblical commands and ethical direction in the Bible as a test and imagine God gave them as an evaluative tool. I begin my ethics course by stating that that ethical direction and commands in the Bible are a gift from God. In responses that students write to the class, they frequently share how radically the idea of ethics as gift contrasts with the view they had. Often they reflect on how this new perspective changes their view of God (or at least it points to the possibility of seeing God differently than an accusing figure ready to scold them). It is both a very fulfilling moment as a teacher, to observe the positive impact of the class material, and very sad to see how many need liberation from this mistaken image of God and Christian ethics.

A God of conditional love and bounded group religiosity are intertwined and mutually supportive. So, a couple weeks later in the course when I teach about bounded, fuzzy, and centered churches I once again have a fulfilling and sad moment. Many students respond to the class by sharing how they have struggled under the weight of trying to stay on the right side of the lines of a bounded church and the God associated with those lines. Some write of having been shamed and wounded by bounded churches. Again, as in the first week, talk of a centered approach and a God of unconditional love sparks hope for the possibility of an alternative.

This happens each time I teach the course. I expect it. Yet this semester it impacted me more than usual. I had follow-up conversations with a few students who seemed both especially eager to experience an alternative and unable to imagine how they might do so. They had been Christians for years. You might sit next to them at church, in a Bible study, or in a seminary class and not guess that under the surface, deep in their being, they do not feel unconditionally loved by God. You may be unaware that they strive to measure up to the expectations of God and their bounded churches.

I talked to one of the students by phone as I took a walk, listening, empathizing, asking questions, and then talking about Jesus. I encouraged her to read through a gospel looking at Jesus and continually reflecting on how Jesus differed from her view of God. I suggested she do this with a friend of hers who I knew had experienced significant healing in this area. After we ended the call I kept walking; I felt a deep conviction. There is such great need, we must proclaim the good news that God is love; we must invite people to relationship with Jesus and help them experience Jesus’ loving embrace.

A voice within me said, “those words sound familiar, like saying, ‘we must do evangelism.’” Yes, certainly, but what I felt in that moment was a need to re-evangelize, continue evangelizing—proclaiming to not just non-Christians but also Christians the good news that God is not the God of bounded group religion, but the God revealed by Jesus Christ.

I encourage you to do three things. First, take a moment and rest in the reality of God’s love for you. What parts of your being need to experience Jesus’ loving embrace today?

Second, in settings where you teach, preach, counsel, lead Bible studies look for opportunities to more frequently proclaim this good news. Odds are in those settings, as in my class, there are people desperate to hear it. (And with our natural religious tendencies, the truth is all of us need frequent reminders.)

Third, pray and listen. Are there people in your life who in the depth of their being do not believe God loves them unconditionally? How might you help them know and experience that God loves them?

Exhorting Ourselves and Exhorting Others

Shaped by bounded group religiosity many people experience behavioral exhortations in Christian settings as life-draining—the weight of “oughtness” pressing down on their being. Fear of the shame of not measuring up fills their being. A fuzzy-church approach responds by toning down the commands or avoiding them altogether. A centered-church, committed to transformation toward Christlikeness, must include exhortation. Yet it must do so in a way that does not lead to what is experienced in a bounded church. Not an easy thing to do—especially if the people listening to the exhortation carry bounded-church ways in their beings. I dedicate almost two hours of class time to working on how to do this. Then I have students write an exhortation. They turn in their best effort; I give feedback; they revise and hand in a final draft. As I wrote a year ago, I have made significant improvements to my teaching about giving imperatives (commands) rooted in indicatives of God’s action. Even so I was sobered and discouraged after reading students’ first drafts a couple weeks ago. Only one student came close to doing well. Their papers reminded me that if one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way. Then I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. I invite you to reflect on your internal exhortation language as I share some of what I observed in mine.

The most problematic internal exhortations are voices that explicitly state “You should do X to demonstrate to God and others that you are a good Christian,” and add “If you do not do X you risk rejection by God and your church. How could you call yourself a Christian if you don’t? But, just think how positively people will think of you if you do it!” Yes, let’s work to strip that conditional judgmental language from our internal conversations.  It is clearly not of the Spirit of God.

Yet, in these days I have noted that most of my explicit internal exhortations are what I might call naked imperatives. Simple statements like: “Mark, it would be good for you to do X.” Or “Mark, this person needs help, do X.” Today I do not experience these simple naked imperatives as conditional statements that threaten me with guilt and shame if I do follow through. Yet, I remember when they were not so benign, the words have not changed but my experience of them has.

For instance, I think back to 1984. After four years in Honduras I was moving to Syracuse NY to work as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Where to live? Others involved with InterVarsity recommended I look for an apartment near the university. Made sense. But voices within me said, “Mark, it would be good for you to live among the poor on the bad side of town.” I had just spent four years living out a bounded approach, evaluating missionaries by whether they lived with the poor or isolated themselves in nice houses behind large walls in neighborhoods of the wealthy. The internal voice did not make explicit statements about gaining, or losing, acceptance depending on where I lived. Yet I imagined the badge of honor I could wear if I was on the right side of the line drawn by activists—myself included. In the end, I opted to live a few blocks from Syracuse University, but not without some shame.

Why the difference? Why would I experience the same naked imperative so differently today than decades ago? What this says to me is that, once we eliminate explicitly problematic wording, the most important thing in our internal conversations and in our exhortations to others is not the words themselves, but what we bring to the words. In Syracuse in 1984 there was a lot of bounded religiosity in my being and a sense of God’s love being conditional. That influenced how I heard the naked imperative. Therefore, what is needed is what I call “religion undermining indicatives.” As I describe in chapter two of Religious No More, Jacques Ellul portrays religion with an upward arrow ↑ because our natural tendency is to think we must do things to earn God’s acceptance. Ellul uses a downward arrow ↓ to communicate that Christian revelation, the God of the Bible, is the opposite. Any indicative statement that points to the primacy of God’s loving action challenges our religious tendency and reinforces the gospel ↓ arrow.

What do these statements of God’s grace and loving initiative do? They clothe the naked imperatives with loving acceptance and warm invitation. The truth is that we do not actually experience commands as naked. I called them naked in the sense that they neither have explicit words of conditional religion nor explicit words of God’s love. It is just the imperative, like: “Mark, write a letter to that inmate.” Or “Mark, take a break and go talk to your neighbor.” We clothe the commands. In 1984 I wrapped that naked command in robes of bounded religiosity and a God of conditional love. Even though just months earlier I had read Jacques Ellul, confessed my religious ways, and experienced God’s grace in new and profound ways, the reality was that there was still a lot of bounded-church religion in my being. Those were the clothes I most naturally put on the naked imperatives. Today I clothe them differently. How did the wardrobe change happen?

Through reading Ellul I had discovered toxin in my system. Two things combined to make the clothes I put on those imperatives toxic—a religious concept of God and a bounded-group approach to Christianity. I later realized that it is one thing to discover you have toxins in your system, another thing to flush them from your system. I decided to pour into my being sermons that countered a religious concept of God and repeatedly emphasized God’s loving initiative. I read and re-read books of sermons by Karl Barth.[1] I listened to Earl Palmer and Robert Hill sermons. I kept at it, for a few years, until I sensed the level of toxins had diminished significantly. My default way of hearing internal exhortation had changed because my concept of God had changed. I urge you to do a flush of toxins as well. Today I would add to the list of sermons to listen to: Debbie Blue[2] and Grace Spencer.

Pouring in the good news of the God revealed by Jesus Christ will aid in diluting our internal religious tendencies. Think of it as a general shower. Yet, there will remain parts within us especially entrenched in their view of God as a judgmental, religious God of conditional love. What I think was most effective in changing the clothing I put on naked imperatives was intentionality in bringing those parts into Jesus’ presence. When I felt fear arising in my being; when I felt the threat of being found on the wrong side of a line; I would invite those shamed parts to rest in Jesus’ embrace. Not just a general cleansing, but a very directed injection of religion undermining indicatives.

This is ongoing work. I continue to need to hear the good news of God’s loving initiative, in general and directed ways. I end this blog with words that served as a toxic cleanse for me in recent days. As I read them, in the first case, and sang them, in the second, it really did feel like something cleansing and life-giving poured into my being. May it be the same for you. Read them slowly, let them sink in. Especially invite resistant or doubtful parts to trust that this is true.

This is the last paragraph from the revised version of current student John Drotos’s ethical exhortation:

See this is the beauty of the gospel; that God did not choose to stay distant and far but choose because of his great love for us to come near as the 12 and 72 spoke of.  Do you know that you have access to the world’s greatest gift?  The unfailing, intimate, reconciling love of God.  Can I urge us now to lean into this love today?  Give this love a chance.  A love that doesn’t keep a record of wrongs but is always present, close, and ready for us to turn to it.  A love that can heal our greatest hurts and pain.  A love that if allowed in will transform us and never leave us the same.  Can we then as a response to this love become a people who live transformed by it?  Sharing it with all those we know, near and far.  Can we then because of this love reveal Jesus to a hurting and broken world?  Revealing Jesus through our actions and words.  I believe the answer to this and more is yes, because of the great love that is at work within us.  Now as we leave would we be empowered by this love to share the good news with others that the kingdom of God has come. 

Former student Rebekah Townsend led worship at an event I attended. The songs she chose overflowed with religion undermining indicatives. Again, let the words of two of the stanzas sink in.

In my Father's house

There's a place for me

I'm a child of God

Yes I am

I am chosen not forsaken

I am who You say I am

You are for me not against me

I am who You say I am

(Oh) (Yes) I am who You say I am[3]

Next Month, part II of this blog. What I have observed as I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do externally in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.

[1] Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, Reprint edition (Wipf and Stock, 2010); Karl Barth, Call for God: New Sermons from Basel Prison, Revised ed. edition (Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2012).

[2] A book of sermons: Debbie Blue, Sensual Orthodoxy (Saint Paul, Minn: Cathedral Hill Press, 2003).

[3] “Who You Say I Am,” by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan.

The Power of Boundless Compassion

Father Gregory Boyle since 1984 has ministered in a parish in East Los Angeles that has the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. In 1988 he started Homeboy Industries which has become the largest gang intervention, rehab, and reentry program on the planet. They provide jobs, tattoo removal, mental health counseling, case management, and legal services. I recently read Boyle’s new book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, and then re-read his previous book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. These books overflow with stories and insights gained from decades of, not just gang ministry, but a life intertwined with gang members. How do you imagine the first book might begin? The second? Not with autobiography, not with dramatic tales of gang violence, or sad stories of addiction and brokenness, nor exhortation about the necessity of providing jobs and counseling—all things found in the books. The first chapter in both books focuses on God. In the first paragraph of the first chapter of Barking to the Choir he writes, “It is indeed a challenge to abandon the long-held belief that God yearns to blame and punish us, ask us to measure up or express disappointment and disapproval at every turn” (13). In Tattoos, he writes, “It is precisely because we have such an overactive disapproval gland ourselves that we tend to create God in our image” (28). He proclaims the opposite and tells moving stories of homies experiencing that not only is God love, but that they are beloved by God. Why does he start this way? What can we learn from that?

Gang members’ relational lives are riddled with abandonment, alienation, and attachment issues. And for most, the God they live with is part of that negative stew of rejection and shame. Boyle’s starting his books with God displays that his experience leads him to passionately state the powerful role that God can play in recovery and transformation. Yet, it is also because he has seen the destructive power, and hindrance to healing, of a distorted concept of God. He begins with God because one’s concept of God matters. Living with a disapproving God of accusation is a core problem for homies (and not just homies), and experiencing the loving embrace of a God looking at us with eyes of compassion and delight is a powerful contribution to healing (and not just for homies). How might this reorient us? Is concept of God the first chapter, figuratively speaking,  in our programs, ministry, teaching, counseling, mentoring, parenting, etc.?

To be clear, it is not that Boyle just has an obligatory spiritual chapter and leaves God behind in the first chapter. Deep in the second book he writes, “’Working on yourself’ doesn’t move the dial on God’s love. After all, that is already fixed at its highest setting. But the work one does seeks to align our lives with God’s longing for us—that we be happy, joyful, and liberated from all that prevents us from seeing ourselves as God does” (111). Amen! I deeply affirm his passionate proclamation of God’s unconditional love. There was one line where he may have overstated it, “God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment” (Tattoos, 28). I wonder, because God loves us don’t our actions that hurt others and ourselves sadden God? Perhaps Boyle and I think of the word “disappointment” differently. Because, clearly Father Boyle recognizes that actions matter. His is not a fuzzy approach. Homeboy Industries has standards, they fire people. Boyle includes stories of loving confrontation of homies.

Yes, not fuzzy, but also so intentionally centered and not bounded. Boyle takes a centered approach not only as an alternative to bounded church, but, even more so, to the bounded character of gangs. He writes, “Gangs are bastions of conditional love—one false move, and you find yourself outside. Slights are remembered, errors in judgment held against you forever” (Tattoos, 94). Homeboy Industries seeks to offer the alternative, a community of unconditional love that avoids the boundedness of the gang and the judgementalism of society. I recommend reading the books and taking notes, as I did, on how to improve at practicing a centered approach. Here are just two items from my notes. 

Like many recovery programs, those who work at Homeboy must do drug testing. Yet, reflect on Boyle’s explanation for their strict approach: “Embarking on the ‘the good journey’ requires confronting the inevitable emotional obstacles in that path. It’s always a painful process, and we don’t want them to numb themselves by self-medication. Once they let go of the hatred for their gang rivals—every homie’s starting point—they are left to deal with their own pain” (Choir, 84).

When we step away from anxiety about the purity of the group and the imperative of drawing lines of exclusion, we can follow Father Boyle in turning from judgmentalism to compassionate accompaniment. He states, “the ultimate measure of health in any community might well reside in our ability to stand in awe at what folks have to carry rather than judgement at how they carry it” (Choir, 51).

I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with each additional paragraph I write in this blog. I have shared ideas, insights—and there are some great insights in the books—but first and foremost Boyle is a great story teller. His books, unlike my blog, are not essays. Immerse yourself in the stories, laugh with him, cry with him, learn with him. (To get a taste of the stories in the book listen to this Ted Talk.)

So, just one more insight to end with. Perhaps what most impresses me with the books is how much they affirm Bob Brenneman’s thesis in Homies and Hermanos, and James Gilligan’s thesis in Violence. At the root of addiction, violence, gang membership is shame. Boyle communicates this through stories and captures it in great lines like: “there is a palpable sense of disgrace strapped like an oxygen tank onto the back of every homie I know. . . they strut around in protective shells of posturing” (Tattoos, 52). Boyle seeks to counter “the wreck of a lifetime of internalized shame” by communicating the reality that “God finds them (us) wholly acceptable” (Tattoos, 44). “One of the signature marks of our God is the lifting of shame” (Choir, 135). Boyles calls us to follow Jesus in showering the shamed with love and dignity through radical inclusion and kinship. “Precisely to those paralyzed in this toxic shame, Jesus says, ‘I will eat with you.’ . . . He goes where love has not yet arrived. . . Eating with outcasts rendered them acceptable” (Tattoos, 70).

I end with Father Boyle’s words:

Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. The prophet Habakkuk writes, “The vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment and it will not disappoint. . . and if it delays, wait for it” (Tattoos, 190).

Unkindly Eyes or Compassionate Eyes?

Who is someone you have thought critically of today? A person or two you have looked at with disdain or disapproval this week? I invite you, pray a blessing on those people. What happens (to you)? Years ago, I thought critically of the pastor of the church I attended. He was a good orator, but often appeared to make up the sermon as he delivered it. He led us in making plans, but not in carrying them out. I could go on, but the point is I had a list of critical thoughts about him. I brought them to church with me each week. Seeing him through the filter of that list made it hard for me to see anything else about him. I had a hyper-sensitive radar to his negative attributes. It was a critical feedback loop. My growing disdain and frustration became a barrier to experiencing positive things that he and the church had to offer and also a barrier to my involvement in the church. My friend and mentor, Doug Frank, suggested that each week at church I imagine the vulnerable hurting little boy within the pastor. (Just as Doug had previously led me to think of the little Mark Baker within me.) What happened? I still had critiques of things the pastor did or did not do, but the starting point was compassion. The filter changed. I saw him differently.

How might it change our days if we wrapped every thought about another person in a blanket of blessing and compassion? How might it change our interactions if blessing and compassion were our starting points? How might that help us live out a centered approach to church? I will say more on that in a moment, but first a few thoughts about God. How might it change our concept of God, our experience of the God we live with, if we knew, in the depth of our being, that God looks at us through eyes of blessing and compassion?

For many, to hear the words, “God sees into the innermost parts of your being” provokes fear. If the peering eyes are unkindly ones, the fear is appropriate. Roberta Bondi, in her memoir, Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life (great book!) describes a turning point in her relationship with God and Christianity. Through reading one of the early desert monastics she realized, “that only God can judge us because it is only God who can look with compassion on the depth and variety of our individual experience and our suffering, and know us as we really are” (78). God looks at you with eyes of compassion. Rest in that thought for a moment. Imagine Jesus looking at you—looking not just at your actions, but probing with understanding at the roots of those actions.

Having the God revealed by Jesus, the God described by Bondi, at the center is a key element in the difference between the character of a centered church and a bounded church. It is not, however, just because of how it changes an individual’s experience of God. Emphasizing relationship with the center includes the biblical imperative of seeking to live in conformity with the center, to imitate Christ. Deepening relationship with Jesus calls and enables us to view others with compassion. That too will change the character of a church.

Would you like to be part of a church community filled with people like I was with their radar set to highest sensitivity for others’ shortcomings, or with people like Doug Frank who look at others with eyes of compassion? A critical posture feeds a bounded approach. Looking critically at others enables me to feel a sense of superiority. Even if not done consciously, it is an over-and-above move. What happened when I looked at the pastor through different lenses? Thinking compassionately about his hurts and wounds was a leveling move. It was not pity; I too carry wounds. It put his actions that I was critical of in a new light and led to different thoughts about what might bring change in his life.

How about fuzzy? Note that Bondi does not say that the turning point was realizing God does not judge. Doug did not suggest I ignore the pastor’s shortcomings. Experiencing tolerance feels better than a critical unkindly eye, but tolerance is also less than blessing. A fuzzy approach could compassionately understand why a person acts as they do, but would stop there. It would be hesitant to take the next step. It would not seek to use that understanding to work with the person for change. Is that full compassion? Is that naming?

Let us look at others with eyes of compassion and prayers of blessing.