Pictoral Dictionaries
12-16-05
I must warn you. If you read this you will find that my mind works in some really odd ways. As an example: Last night my wife and I were talking to some friends, Jamie and Doug, about another family that has a new baby. In the conversation Doug made the comment, "I haven't seen their new baby." Immediately, I began to think about how weird that was. I started wondering, "How old does a child have to be for us to start saying 'I haven't met their child'"? When do we stop seeing them as zoo animals or museuam exhibits and begin to refer to them as human beings. When I accidentally verbalized the question to my wife, she gave me that look that says, "What are you talking about?" Well, I had a similar incident this morning as I worked on a sermon for Sunday. As a preacher and teacher I deal mostly in words and concepts. I spend a lot of time thinking about my use of language and how it can be theologically formative and/or destructive for other people in the church. One of the things that I am often reminded of is that we have a slew of words in the church that are our words alone. They may be commonly used but our specific Christian interpretation of them often makes them unrecognizable to outsiders. I would include words like love, justification, sanctification, holy, worship, baptism, faith, hope, joy, and many others on this list. These have become part of our own specific language. The problem I find is that even our church members have a hard time defining many of the words we use. Try asking a group of Christians what the word "holy" means and see how many different answers you get. We often allow these words to become ambiguous concepts with all kinds of interpretations. I'm not saying that that is totally bad. For instance, I wouldn't want to pigeon-hole the definition of love. However, I also don't want to over-define these words so that they become impotent, lacking all their power. I am writing a sermon about the theme of reconiliation right now and I am having a hard time explaining exactly what that word means. So, I asked myself the question, "Why do we always try to define a word or a concept with other words or concepts?" Doesn't it seem somewhat strange to think that I could explain to you what one word means by using hundreds of other words? Sometimes I think we just muddy the water and making understanding an unattainable goal. So, here is my stupid question of the day. Wouldn't it be more meaningful to define words through actions or pictures? At least, some of the time. Instead of writing six pages on how to define reconciliation wouldn't it be more powerful to live it out? Really, I think Jesus did that on occasion. He could preach all day on service but I think the disciples learned more about the word when Jesus strapped on a towel and started scrubbing feet. He could tell you all you want to know about forgiveness and thankfulness but rather he just let a woman bathe his feet in perfume. He could tell you about innocence and trust but, instead he just p0inted at a group of kids clamoring at his feet and said, "Be like them." I think in some ways we are called to be walking, talking pictoral dictionaries. It is in our lives that people will understand the definition of love, holiness, patience, forgiveness, sacrifice, selflessness, and reconciliation. It is through our actions that we clear up the muddiness of our wordy attempts at defining biblical concepts. Now, believe me, I'm not trying to think my way out of a job. I still believe in the power of words, of preaching, of teaching, of prayer. But, I think we can become too logical, too focused on objective definitions and never truly discover what it means to be Christians, what it means to be humans created in the image of God.
I must warn you. If you read this you will find that my mind works in some really odd ways. As an example: Last night my wife and I were talking to some friends, Jamie and Doug, about another family that has a new baby. In the conversation Doug made the comment, "I haven't seen their new baby." Immediately, I began to think about how weird that was. I started wondering, "How old does a child have to be for us to start saying 'I haven't met their child'"? When do we stop seeing them as zoo animals or museuam exhibits and begin to refer to them as human beings. When I accidentally verbalized the question to my wife, she gave me that look that says, "What are you talking about?" Well, I had a similar incident this morning as I worked on a sermon for Sunday. As a preacher and teacher I deal mostly in words and concepts. I spend a lot of time thinking about my use of language and how it can be theologically formative and/or destructive for other people in the church. One of the things that I am often reminded of is that we have a slew of words in the church that are our words alone. They may be commonly used but our specific Christian interpretation of them often makes them unrecognizable to outsiders. I would include words like love, justification, sanctification, holy, worship, baptism, faith, hope, joy, and many others on this list. These have become part of our own specific language. The problem I find is that even our church members have a hard time defining many of the words we use. Try asking a group of Christians what the word "holy" means and see how many different answers you get. We often allow these words to become ambiguous concepts with all kinds of interpretations. I'm not saying that that is totally bad. For instance, I wouldn't want to pigeon-hole the definition of love. However, I also don't want to over-define these words so that they become impotent, lacking all their power. I am writing a sermon about the theme of reconiliation right now and I am having a hard time explaining exactly what that word means. So, I asked myself the question, "Why do we always try to define a word or a concept with other words or concepts?" Doesn't it seem somewhat strange to think that I could explain to you what one word means by using hundreds of other words? Sometimes I think we just muddy the water and making understanding an unattainable goal. So, here is my stupid question of the day. Wouldn't it be more meaningful to define words through actions or pictures? At least, some of the time. Instead of writing six pages on how to define reconciliation wouldn't it be more powerful to live it out? Really, I think Jesus did that on occasion. He could preach all day on service but I think the disciples learned more about the word when Jesus strapped on a towel and started scrubbing feet. He could tell you all you want to know about forgiveness and thankfulness but rather he just let a woman bathe his feet in perfume. He could tell you about innocence and trust but, instead he just p0inted at a group of kids clamoring at his feet and said, "Be like them." I think in some ways we are called to be walking, talking pictoral dictionaries. It is in our lives that people will understand the definition of love, holiness, patience, forgiveness, sacrifice, selflessness, and reconciliation. It is through our actions that we clear up the muddiness of our wordy attempts at defining biblical concepts. Now, believe me, I'm not trying to think my way out of a job. I still believe in the power of words, of preaching, of teaching, of prayer. But, I think we can become too logical, too focused on objective definitions and never truly discover what it means to be Christians, what it means to be humans created in the image of God.
posted by Spruce at 1:29 PM
2 Comments:
Spruce, you are on to something. Knowledge is sometimes best conveyed through pictures, stories, etc. (but notice how many words it took you to say that!)
Keep up the good work.
- - Jerry (a Catholic priest)
Very good point Spruce. Thanks for causing me to think awhile today.
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