Brett's Discernment

I feel obliged to write about seminary, like you'd write about a date, a recipe, steps of a dance, a good conversation with friends. But I am having trouble encapsulating it. Overall, I feel affirmed - academically, pastorally, et cetera. Thankfully, I also feel a little challenged, and in ways I did not necessarily expect. I am challenged to continually grow in my patience, how I listen and relate to others, and learning how to be there for people as they struggle in ways that may be different (or opposite) from my own. I am learning a lot about myself as of course I learn through my books. That sounds corny. But I am learning and remembering about myself that I am not perfect (important! and I am quite aware!) and that I really love caring for people, praying, and engaging with the bible.
My CPE interview reminded me that I am scarred in some ways (no, I did not cry! but just in that sometimes these interviews shake you into being a little more self-realistic) but also that I feel so blessed to be gifted for ministry.
Speaking of blessings, it was such an honor to go to Chicago for the fund for leaders dinner/events. It was neat to hear about the church on a larger scale and all the good it is able to do. I needed some affirming of that, in all of our seminarian vigor sometimes I think we forget to recognize all the good that is done. On the same time as that was amazing to look at the forest of the churchwide ELCA and meet bishops from all over, it was humbling to think of the very personal connection for people to give the great and meaningful gift of my education. Conversations from that quick trip will stick with me, especially with the seminarians from around the country as we start to grapple with our new seminary careers. The picture in this post is from that trip and is on the elca.org front page today! :) Thanks to Leslie who alerted me to it, I'm not sure I would have caught it.

I got my first big grade back today in sem., this paper posted below. I was proud that I had done quite well and hopeful that the one in the previous post does as well. So here it is, I welcome any comments:

-And then I should go back to studying . . . I have an exam tomorrow -

Love Calling Justice

the Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez

Gutierrez's “love letter to God” reads as a visceral, necessary yearning for justice in the world in all forms. It is centered in that ajgavph love for and with God he holds so near. This type of love, ajgavph, meaningfully translated “charity” in KJV, not only means but necessitates justice, and Gutierrez's theology centers in justice serving as the church's central mission. I have reflected often on Walter Benton's poetic words about human love and how they apply so well to God's love for us, and I think they underscore Gutierrez's deep love for God and the parallel call for justice:

“Because hate is legislated . . . written into
the primer and the testament,
Because our day is of time, of hours --- and the clock-hand turns,
closes the circle upon us: and black timeless night
sucks us in like quicksand, receives us totally --
without a raincheck or a parachute, a key to heaven or the last long look
I need love more than ever now . . . I need your love,
I need love more than hope or money, wisdom or a drink
Because slow negative death withers the world . . .”¹

Justice is this love, the work of God, among and for the people, the central mission of the church which brings joy – the type of joy through love that is so necessary – as Jesus Christ, the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, Benton, and Gutierrez all cry out for.

Justice is at its root balance, and not necessarily equality in the quid pro quo sense we consider it today. Gutierrez's writings often reflect on these careful balances which create justice in God's kingdom and church – between silence and dialogue, acceptance and “inculturation.” Ultimately, justice is a practice – the central practice of the church. Gutierrez writes, “discipleship of Jesus falls precisely in the realm of practice, upon which we are interested in reflecting the light of the Word of the Lord.”² Discipleship must be then practical and visible in its response, which causes us to open our eyes and look for those situations which most need our attention.

We as the people of God are called to discipleship of justice, through which we should open our eyes to be best aware of our world and its needs – and as we do, what will we see? “By deepening and broadening the link between faith and justice, we can more adequately and fruitfully grasp the incisive challenge of poverty.”³ Concern, action, and advocacy for the poor is central in Gutierrez's practice of theology. Raising up the poor is a theological action of God through people, and hopefully people as the body of Christ, to create joy. This is true joy – not only surface human joy because people are helped, but God's joy in having his creation uplifted and treated fairly. There is also an inherent, more subtle justice in the power of listening to the poor and disenfranchised, something Gutierrez holds as paramount. The interrelation between God, joy, and people (including the church) is inseparable. To love the poor is to be Christ to and for them, and to struggle with them is to listen to them, to intercede for them in prayer as the church on Earth, just as the Holy Spirit does for us.

Since theology, as Gutierrez upholds, is an “ecclesial function,”⁴ and theology is not carried out individually or in isolation, then justice must be the work of the church, as the body of Christ. Because we are as the church called to live out our theology, doing so creates fullness, and in that, joy. Therefore, Gutierrez's love letter to God, his life and writings of theology, reveals what some of what the letter says, of what it would look like to live out our theology, and strive for a divine justice. In addition to the high priority of the poor, this justice includes being more inwardly aware of the world and the Word around oneself in each moment. God's justice does not mean that everyone ought to have the exact same lot – rather, Gutierrez's theology is aware of the importance of identity, in people and the church. He acknowledges that it is a great danger that we as the church might, in the name of justice, try to assimilate and subjugate peoples, cultures, (and I would add forms of spirituality), “There is much to learn from this will to unification, which does not forget the difference among the various aspects involved, but which also keeps in mind both the common source and the one final destiny of those human dimensions.”⁵ Gutierrez ties here the four central elements of his theology: we are diverse people, who as the church are called to unification, to create and have peaceful joy, in response to the joy of being created and saved by God.

Justice is the defining message of the gospel, and it does not mean that everyone ought have what I, or my congregation, or the larger church might see as best or most divinely fair and fitting. As a Lutheran (and I think Gutierrez would not disagree), I see justice as integral as my response to the expansive grace which I am given and yet do not deserve. Thankfully, I am not alone, and we as the people of God, can do so much together, as one body of Christ, when we set justice at the core of our mission. Gutierrez's love for God, and his theology which professes it, is elemental and practical at its core – joy, people, church, and God, held together by the central mission of justice in God's kingdom.