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| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
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September 2004 Some years ago, people puzzled over a puzzle that left them quite puzzled. They just couldn’t see the solution. The puzzle was comprised of nine dots arranged in a set of three rows to form the shape of a box:
The challenge was to draw four straight lines which went through the middle of all the dots without taking the pencil off the paper. Each line was to start where the last line finished. People worked and worked at it until they threw down the pencil in disgust. So what was the solution?
To go outside the box: Nothing in the directions stipulated that you had to stay within the box defined by the dots, but most people did. Some assumed that you couldn’t violate the boundaries established by the dots; for others, the pattern itself seemed to dictate the proper method of solving the problem. Few people imagined a new approach or dared to try an unconventional solution. In time the puzzle led to a new catch phrase: thinking “outside the box.” To think “outside the box” means to perceive things in fresh ways, to think beyond accepted approaches or established methods or approved solutions, to see reality in a different way, to dare to imagine unconventional solutions and to push back limits and boundaries to discover new possibilities. And in that sense Jesus definitely thought and lived “outside the box” and taught his disciples to do the same. Jesus refused to be confined by centuries-old religious rules and rituals that had come to take the life and hope out of people. The God Jesus revealed was not a God who could act only in ways he once did or only in ways that people thought possible or considered acceptable; the God Jesus revealed was a God who shattered the boundaries of human thought and imagination and broke through the limits of the past and even death itself and worked new and impossible things. The Spirit Jesus sent to guide the disciples after he was gone was a power that was beyond their control and led them to violate long-established boundaries between Jew and Gentile, to think outside the culture of their day and accept women disciples as equals, to see reality in a new way and perceive life in fresh and hope-filled ways. And Jesus' teaching was certainly “outside the box.” He re-interpreted the commandments in a way that disturbed the fine religious people of his day. He turned accepted cultural values upside down when he declared the poor and meek and peacemakers to be favored by God. He called for the love of others -- to act for the well-being of others, even the enemy, and to put aside self-interest and self-indulgence. In so many ways, his teaching called for an approach and response that were outside accepted approaches and conventional responses. He himself was a new reality “outside the box” and he taught a new reality. And the result? A religion that is “outside the box.” Or should be. Christianity -- following Christ, living with faith in Christ, living out the Gospel -- should give life and hope, freedom and joy to people by connecting them to the new reality of Christ. Christians themselves are to be life-givers -- people who build up hope and new possibility, see the reality that the other is the neighbor and respond to the other with grace and compassion, work for reconciliation among the peoples of this earth, dare to imagine possibilities beyond established doctrine and practice and bias, and follow the Spirit to new ways of living before God and with others. Christianity is meant to free us to become truly human and to live fully. And that would be a religion definitely “outside the box”, if the “box” is much of American Christianity today in which judgment and fear and guilt take the life out of believers and which even promotes division and suspicion and the tearing down of others. To follow Christ is to think and live and act “outside the box” and see a new reality and new possibility. And that’s exactly what our billboard at the corner of Hwy 138 and Hwy 314 will proclaim in September. Instead of using the puzzle as a graphic, however, we will use a jack-in-the-box -- a child’s toy -- to convey the surprise and delight of living and thinking “outside the box” as Christ calls us to. Something like we did when we were children, before we were instructed to color within the lines and forget new ways of seeing and doing. God be with you, Jeff
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