This TLDR rant in a nutshell: There's no substitute for going the distance. Want to learn some lessons from the Bible? Read the freaking Bible. Seamless seems less than simply reading the Real Book for yourself.
We're in a small group, and for six weeks, we're working through the Seamless book and videos from Angie Somebodyorother. Seamless is a 7-installment overview of the Bible, ostensibly for people who feel inadequate around others who have read and understand the Bible. Seamless is the flavor of the week, finding wide usage in church study groups right now. Seamless is also for people who like pastel pink, glib asides which distract from the topic at hand, and who prefer Cliff's notes to the original unabridged works. The associated videos are for people who can watch a lady with impossibly-whitened teeth talk while pushing the sides of her mouth back and forth into her cheeks. People who can trust the printed promises in the book how in this study, the sweep of scripture will be tied together in one seamless, comprehensible package and it's really hard reading but trust me, it will all make sense as we go through the next weeks' studies and in the end you'll come away with a superduper knowledge that you didn't have before but who are also people who can forget immediately when the survey's over, all of the promises about the whole package making tidy sense never got answered.
I read the first week's portion last week, and hoped that my attitude would improve as we forged ahead. We're going over week two tomorrow night at our group. So last night, I'm pushing to the side the four other books I'm simultaneously ingesting and am really excited about, to pick up the smug non-sequitur-soaked copy of Seamless and do the homework for the week.
I read a page and half. I stop and I say, "OMB, I can't do this to myself for another month." I determined that I was either going to ditch group for the next 5 weeks, or I was going to finish off this inanity right here and right now.
I told myself and the group that I would do the readings, so I'm doomed. And, when I first picked up the book, I wondered if I was to try to put together a survey study of the whole Bible, how would I put it all together? Curiosity about how she'd made this whole thing work, especially in only 6ish chapters, got the better of me. So I forced myself to sit there at the kitchen table and choke the whole thing down in one seamless session.
L was laughing at me as she overheard my exasperation in involuntary sighs and groans all evening.
Bible lite. Like reading the title page and back cover of War and Peace, and telling folks you read the book cover to cover. Like watching the trailer and thinking you can tell everyone you've seen the movie. Like reading the headlines and saying you've read the newspaper.
It's like a guidebook for christians who are too lazy or undisciplined or disinterested to read the actual Bible, but who want to tell others that they've done a study of the entire Bible. Exactly like that, actually.
So, how did Angie pull off "an overarching understanding of the fundamental layout and meaning of the Bible" as the Lifeway advertising says, in only 7 sessions?
She didn't. Seamless never does follow through on its vows to put it all together into one thread, which was most infuriating. Who reads this book, and then recommends it to others? I wonder if this is all just a wide and elaborate practical joke on me to see if I'd actually read the book through without flinging my copy against the wall. Ha, ha! Got me! You can all come out now, hoo hoo!
The fact that this is popularized as a viable vehicle for group study in the American church is an indictment on the puddle-deep spirituality that passes for christianity in America. Why no one questions a book called Seamless, which lacks seams by omission, the way the emperor's new clothes lack seams, shows that people will buy whatever they're sold.
Postscript: How this does my heart good. L was chiding me as we drove to our small group meeting: Don't say anything bad about the book. Be positive.
And so, I was keeping silent. The group did the work for me, deciding unanimously and quite immediately that we were going to be studying something else for the next 5 weeks. I like this group.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went.
5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’
7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ 9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. 10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’
13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’
16 So the last shall be first, and the first last."
During this chapter Jesus is aiming to prepare the disciples for his coming death. How are they going to continue after He is no longer around to set them straight? Is their belief going to be another power-grabbing, top-heavy religious hierarchy full of self-service and nepotism that the world has already seen again and again, or is it going to be something new?
Those who work an hour or a day receive the same wages - just as those who place their trust in Jesus to save them receive the same gift of eternal life. Same pay, different amount of work done. Not as a result of the recipient's merit, but a result of the generosity of the employer. We all get it. Post-reformation, we all get that salvation is by faith alone.
Not really. So few get this. James and John didn't get this after the parable was told, and the others were ticked at them because they all wanted preferential treatment. The whole still recognizes religious systems that are based on the same old merit treadmill.
Or is your eye envious because I am generous...?
I'm struck by this line. This is the microscope.
Shouldn't we be envious when there isn't enough to go around? Scramble and squabble when there's need on one hand and over-abundance on the other. But that's not the case. Everyone who comes to the waters will drink and never thirst again. Why get miffed if you needed to take a long drink to fill yourself and another only needed a sip? Why mope when others get more than they seem to deserve from a God who is a giver? Why not cheer? It all seems so petty and small and weerd.
But Christians do - I do - not maybe over the abstraction of salvation, but over the tiny concrete things in life. God has blessed someone with more money than you have. Does that make your eye envious? They have better looks, or capability, or status, or inheritance, or things, things, things. When a co-worker gets a raise. Do you celebrate? Does it bother you?
Why can't we just work a day and enter into our rest without looking around at the others? Do your day's work and take your day's pay - gladly - without worrying about who's working harder, or doing more, or getting theirs for doing less.
I get heaven for free. Are you kidding me? Nothing anyone else gets or doesn't get should eclipse this on my radar.
The chapter ends with a simple anecdote. Blind men ask and receive sight, then follow Jesus. Isn't that my life in a nutshell? I was blind but now I see. Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. I have new sight, no room in my eye now for envy.
Matthew 19:4
And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
7 They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples *said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.”
11 But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”
Sounds like the guys approaching Jesus are asking big questions about marriage because they're unhappily married to some shrewish Jewish wives and want a ticket out.
Although the whole focus of this exchange is marriage/divorce, I'm struck by the implied (okay, inferred, by me) challenge in vs 12. It's a little late for me to unmarry myself and make a lifetime sacrifice of my relationship status for the sake of the kingdom. But, and without putting any words into Jesus' mouth here - only going on a bit of an extrapolation exploration on my own, I wonder how many other lesser life-aspects we can place into this category of voluntary eunuch-dom?
For there are men who are born disliking soccer; and there are men who were made to hate soccer because of early hateful coaching; and then there are soccer-lovers who have made themselves burn their love for soccer on the altar for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
If we can replace something as foundational to our worldview as the desire for a life-partner to make room for kingdom work as our partner (remember, Jesus himself lived this!), then how many other cultural givens might come under scrutiny?
Devotion to a professional sports team
Allegiance to a designer brand
Marriage to an alma mater, or birth-state, or political party
Identification with a denomination
Or, less abstract notions.
Living in a house with no TV
No music except the music you create in worship
No vacations, only missions
No haircuts, no wine, ala Nazarite
Would some of this simply be living under a do-not-handle-do-not-taste-do-not-touch law? Or, would omitting some basic lifepoints be empowering instead of limiting (see Samson, above)?
What's on the table simply because our society dictates that it's a fundamental necessity but is an impediment to living fully for the kingdom of heaven?
Something should give. I can think of something to relinquish as an offering to God, to make greater room in my earthly life for the kingdom of heaven. One thing. Going to boil it down this week.
