Robert Lowery

Okay, this may be the first and only time that you see the names of these two theologians linked, but they need to be.

A few days ago I was traveling to Higbee, Missouri to teach and decided to take along a 5 CD set of Johnny Cash entitled “Cash Unearthed.” It is a remarkable set, produced by Rick Rubin over a period of months and released shortly before Cash’s death. I had recently finished N.T. Wright’s remarkable book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008) and Wright’s approach to a biblical understanding of the blessed hope of Christians connected with what Cash wrote:

Come hear me good brothers come here one and all
Don’t brag about standing or you’ll surely fall
You’re shinin’ your light yes and shine it you should
You’re so heavenly minded and you’re no earthly good
No earthly good you are no earthly good
You’re so heavenly minded you’re no earthly good

Come here me good sisters you’re salt of the earth
If your salt isn’t salted then what is it worth
You could give someone a cool drink if you would
You’re so heavenly minded and you’re no earthly good
No earthly good you are no earthly good
You’re so heavenly minded you’re no earthly good

If you’re holding heaven then spread it around
There are hungry hands reaching up here from the ground
Move over and share the high ground where you stood
So heavenly m indeed and you’re no earthly good
No earthly good you are no earthly good
You’re so heavenly m indeed you’re no earthly good

What Cash sang in three verses, Wright develops in nearly three hundred pages of clearly thought out reflections. Wright doesn’t believe in heaven—at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. Wright quotes a children’s book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What’s Heaven? which describes it as “a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk…If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go there…When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you to heaven to be with him.” That, says Wright, is a good example of what not to say. The Bishop of Durham then develops many Biblical truths:

• In the Bible we are told that when you die, you enter an intermediate state. Paul is every clear that Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet.
• The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies.
• The New Testament does not teach that all that really matters is saving souls for a disembodied heaven.
• At no point do the Gospels teach that “Jesus has been raised, therefore when we die we are all going to heaven.” It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the earth in an act of new creation.
• Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun: we have a job to do.
• The New Testament teaches that God wants us to be renewed human beings helping him to renew his creation. The resurrection of Jesus was the opening bell.
• If people think “My physical body doesn’t matter very much,” then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world doesn’t matter much, who cares what we do with that? No! Wright shouts. It matters if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to the final coming of Jesus. It matters when we bomb civilians. It matters how we treat our spouses and our children and our neighbors. It matters how we are faithful in carrying out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

If Cash were still alive, I would love to hear him and Bishop Wright sing a duet.

For years I put off reading the novels by Wendell Berry, a decision made despite recommendations from people who I consider trustworthy when it comes to recommending what is worth reading. Well, I have begun reading the volumes about the fictional village, Port William, located in Kentucky. I regret not having read them earlier, because I will certainly want to read them again and again. He introduces a cast of characters that I feel like I would know if they were to move to Lincoln. In fact, he has gone so far as to draw a map of Port William and he includes it in the volumes along with the “family tree” of its residents. When I survey the tree and see the birthdates and deathdates of characters I have fallen in love with, I feel as if I have lost some neighbors. This is quite remarkable, really, because they—the Coulters and the Catletts, for example, are fictional characters. But I miss one and then another as either the story comes to an end or their lives do.

I am currently reading a third volume in the series (I believe there are seven plus a volume of short stories), A World Lost, published in 1996. It is a story about a young boy, Andy Catlett, and the death of his Uncle Andrew Catlett, his namesake, his father’s brother. Uncle Andrew was one of a species, we are told. The uncle is murdered and in the pages we trace Andy’s pilgrimage in dealing with the death of his beloved uncle and friend. As Andy observes “I was his hand, his body, his buddy . . . I had wanted to be like him. It had not occurred to me to want to be like anybody else.” Andy experiences loss, sadness, and the mystery surrounding the man’s death. Indeed, no one tells the boy why his uncle was murdered, and the question follows Andy into adulthood.

The story is about the slippery nature of true, including the truth about each of us, about all of us.

There are two parts I cite for you. The first is one of Andy’s many reflections on his Uncle Andrew:

To him, I think the idea of consequence was always an afterthought. He did not expect consequences; he discovered them. When he could, he laughed them away. When they pressed in through his laughter, he shut his mouth and bore them. What he had done was his fate, and so he bore it.

Andy goes through life and collects what information he can about his uncle. As he collects he learns the limits of fact. Later in life, he reflects:

Perhaps it was thinking about him after his death, discovering how much I remembered and how little I knew, that I learned that all human stories in the world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist, though it must lie all around us everyday, is mostly hidden from us, the birds’ nests in the woods.

I turned 61 on October 11. I read the above statements a few days after that day and marveled that at points in my life I have lived without thought of consequences of something I have said or did. More often than not, those were regretful times. Times I hope no one ever recalls and digs up. Much of my life is lost because so much was unwritten. (I have never been good at journaling, a popular practice among many today.) So much should remain unwritten and unread. And yet the truth about me as a husband, father, grandfather, teacher, and preacher lies all around me everyday. Much of the time, it is hidden from loved ones and friends and colleagues. Much of it is hidden from me. So I begin this sixty-first year relying on God’s grace more than ever. It is a wonderful, marvelous grace that saves, sustains, and continues to surprise.

I just returned from a delightful trip to Mechanicsville, Virginia. Ronnie Jones, a dear friend and preacher and teacher of Scripture, asked me to teach an overview of the Book of Revelation over four nights. It was my third visit to Gethsemane Church of Christ, and like the other two occasions, I was blessed to have the opportunity to share Scripture.

On the day I returned, Ronnie and I went out for breakfast and we discussed strategies for teaching Revelation. He will be retiring as the preaching minister of Gethsemane next spring, but he hopes to continue preaching and teaching in area churches. He will do well, I know.

As we talked, I told Ronnie that in doing itinerant preaching and teaching over the years, I have learned some lessons.

First, focus on the macro not the micro. Help people see the forest rather than individual trees. Far too many preachers want to discuss the identity of the twenty-four elders or the meaning of 666 and people become confused. When you do focus on micro topics of passages, always place them in the context of the bigger picture.

Second, move from the simple to the complex. Don’t start out offering an interpretation of the two witnesses in Revelation 11, for example. Instead focus on clearer passages that speak about the responsibility of the church to be witnessing and then bring in Revelation 11.

Third, use the familiar to explain the unfamiliar. For example, before discussing the symbols in Revelation, show how symbols permeate church culture (the cross, the bread and the juice, the pulpit, etc.).

Fourth, always stress context. Context, the weaving together of passages within a book and how those passages and the book itself fits in with the overall STORY of the Bible. More misunderstanding takes places because of missed context than for any other reason, I believe.

Fifth, start off with what the book meant before you discuss what it means. The book must have meant something to the original recipients. That is the starting point for all responsible application.

Sixth, related to the point above, move repeatedly back and forth between the “then” and the “now,” between background (the first century setting) and the foreground (the twenty-first century setting). Don’t make a lesson merely a “history” lesson but show the timeliness and the timelessness of the book.

Seventh, model the principle of letting Scripture interpret Scripture. The answers to our questions are, more often than not, embedded in the text itself.

Eighth, engage and encourage your audience. Engage by welcoming comments before, during and after the teaching sessions. Encourage questions to be asked. I always find something “good” in a question not matter how simple or how it may seem to be off the subject.

Ninth, review, review, and then review some more. Repetition helps ideas lodge in our hearts and minds.

Tenth, teach with bold humility. You do not want to appear wishy-washy, and yet you don’t want to appear to have all the answers. Be willing to acknowledge when you don’t know the answer or haven’t decided what position to take or bounce between one, two, or even three possible interpretations.

Thanks, Ronnie, for the breakfast and the conversation.