I have been re-learning a lot about Greek and Roman mythology lately. The main reason is that my son has discovered a new series of books called Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which retells many of the stories of Greek mythology with a modern twist. Last week my son and I were getting a hot chocolate and latte' at one of my favorite coffee shops in Vancouver called Mon Ami before he went to school. While we were enjoying our warm beverages I was reading a small local weekly paper that was on the table (I’m sorry i don’t remember the name of the paper or I’d provide a link) Anyway, one of the articles/advertisements was an interesting thought about the myth of Sisyphus, the poor man who angered Zeus and was doomed to push a rock up a hill only to have it roll down the other side for an eternity. The article mentioned a french philosopher named Albert Camus who saw the myth in another light. Camus proposed that the only way Sisyphus could bear such an eternity was if he “loved the rock”. The article then went on to say we should join a gym and work out more. A part of me agrees with Camus, not so much about the joining a Gym part, but changing our attitudes about difficult things. Sometimes the things we dread can become the things we love. But an even larger part of cringes at the idea.
If we talk ourselves into “loving the rock” it may make the task bearable, maybe even enjoyable, but it erases the hopes and dreams of a life. I want to ask what about the dreams for Sisyphus's life, his kids his family? If we talk ourselves into desiring the absurdity of pushing a rock for eternity what happens to the dreams of our soul.
Maybe this resonates so sharply with me because I find myself in relationships with clergy who are more and more loosing the dreams of their call. They find themselves serving institutions and organizations as a necessary evil of “doing the work of the gospel” Their dreams as young men and women answering a call from God to offer a relevant gospel to their peers... for faith to be something that transforms all of creation, was lost somewhere in the trustees meeting over the color of the carpet at the church building or in questioning whether the doughnuts at coffee time should be powdered or have sprinkles... or (Insert your own misguided priority here). I hear more and more from my colleagues in ordained ministry and from seminary professors who are training a new generation of ministers, that it is increasingly difficult to live out a call from God in the church as we know it today. In fact I find more men and women NOT pursuing ordained ministry because if they do it means giving up a significant part of what they believe God is calling them to be. When we, who are frustrated, describe the type of church we dream of, the priorities and values that would guide it, we hear too often “we don’t have any churches like that” from our judicatories and cabinets. Even worse I hear from colleges who have been told “we don’t have churches like that, maybe you better just learn to serve the churches we have”. From an institutional standpoint I see the point, and in fact wouldn’t expect a different answer from cabinets and judicatories, but for those of us who desperately and passionately answered a call from God it sounds like “Sisyphus maybe you should just learn to love that rock”
I guess my point in all this is if you are one of those who has answered a call to serve God as a minister of the Gospel, or if you are feeling the inklings of that call, don’t give up on the dreams God’ breathes into your heart. Don’t settle for pushing a rock when your soul cries out for community and creation transformed by the Holy Spirit.
Friends live this gospel wherever you are, and never lose sight of what God is calling you to be. Tell Sisyphus what Isaiah told us. “A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Have a great week friends!
2 comments:
I read, and re-read it many times in high school. It was assigned as part of our Academic Decathalon competition. It is from a collection of essays, which deal with the feelings of absurdity, thoughts on suicide, and purpose.
You can find a translation of the particular essay here :
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/hell/camus.html
Thanks for sharing this, Mark, and for linking to it over on the emergingumc blog.
Yes... there is more.
And yes, there is the institutional church, centered in the life of congregations as we actually have them.
There is both.
And both can be good... but neither is all it can be unless the two are connected.
We need vital congregations, new congregations, revitalized congregations. These institutions matter.
We also need something like the Methodist societies and class meetings, and even a few of the bands, once again. We need these intentional communities that form and deploy disciples of Jesus Christ... not as means to some other end, but as real communities, living instantiations of the body of Christ.
We need both.
And we need them to be connected.
And that's what the emergingumc conference coming this fall will address.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
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