Day 3 - Tuesday

Tonight we are going to let some pictures share our experience here in Guatemala. The kids were away at the beach so our time was primarily spent on our work projects and times of prayer. The families, including the children, at Village of Hope have prepared index cards with prayer requests for us. We can sign-up for an hour time slot to step away from the day's activities and devote ourselves to prayer. And we would also like to share a devotional that Edd prepared for us on our first full day here at Village of Hope.

sometimes you do what you have to do...

... or you borrow the ladder from the bunk bed for a stepstool

 custom-order bench seat by Edd

 solar panel frame welding by Gordon

Al taping and mudding sheetrock for the new school

Mark and Thomas excavating and backfilling at the new school

you find the funniest things in the showers in Guatemala

lunch at Pollo Campero

reading prayer requests

Life in Guatemala...

Guatemala Devotional

Colossians 2: 8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy, by human deceit, according to human tradition, according to the  elemental spirits of this world, and not according to Christ.”

Intro:

Being literally thousands of miles away from home, with much of what is familiar and comfortable to me beyond my reach, and I am forced to confront my conception of reality in fresh and humbling ways. When I think about “reality”, I think about the fact that as human beings we are meaning makers, all of us; we don’t merely live in a kind of brutish relationship to the stuff of existence. Rather, it seems that we are wired to ascribe significance and purpose to even the smallest details that inform for each of us the arc of life. From the petty remark of a stranger, to the political intrigues of whole nations, we constantly seek for reasons, and in this quest we construct for ourselves a prism through which we make sense of the world. Made in the image of God, one way in which we manifest this divine imprint of meaning making is by interpreting and signifying our lived experiences, and it’s in this way that culture happens. But what is culture? Perhaps a good metaphor for culture is to think about a caterpillar’s cocoon: It is from we ourselves that the shape and substance of culture (the cocoon) comes, yet within its dome we find ourselves transformed by it.

The bad news about culture is that, like every other domain of the human project, man-made culture is disordered, having been subjected to futility when our first parents rebelled against God. But the good news is that, like every domain under the sovereign control of almighty God, as the father redeems for his own possession a people from every nation, tribe and tongue, the promise of culture rightly ordered, becomes part of the hope of the new creation.

Point 1: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy…”

When Paul writes to members of the church at Colossae, warning them to guard against being taken captive by philosophy, it’s in the nature of the case that such captivity can only happen with our willing participation. The phrase that Paul uses, “takes you captive”, transliterated means to lead away as booty or spoil; chiefly to seduce.

Coming to a place like Village of Hope, I become conscious of myself laboring to “get used to things” that, frankly, confront my desire to have my life “just so”. For a whole week I don’t get to have the foods that I prefer to eat (I left all my assorted hot sauces at home), my daily exercise routines will be replaced for the week with honest manual labor, and for a week I have to say goodnight to my best friend from a separate bunk. Now, might any of my whining constitute the rudiments of captivity to philosophy that Paul talks about? You bet. I’ve been fascinated by man-made philosophical formulations pretty much my whole adult life, and whether the vicious mole is idealism, existentialism, post-structuralism... whatever the –ism, at the heart of the philosophical impulse is a little totem that I like to call the prerogative of my own inclining; and I find that when we are not resisting its seductive influence this idol persuades us with the most elegant reasons to think that the motive and cue for all of life can be resolved with little more than a hot meal and a bowl of ice cream. In other words, when we consider those of whom Paul spoke when writing to the church at Philippi, we are warned when he tells how for “enemies of the cross of Christ, their end is their destruction, their god is their belly, they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things (3: 19). Such are the appetites and ends of all man-made philosophy.

Point 2: “...by human deceit…”

Human deceit is pretty tricky. Like the god of my belly, I find that I will likely fall prey to deception by feeding myself with a little nudge. For example, let’s think of how it feels to be wrong. Would you say embarrassed? Humiliated? Remorseful? But wait. The question itself is a trick that can only be successfully played on you with your help. Notice, I didn’t ask you how it feels to have been shown that you’ve been wrong, or to have the spectacle of your error put on display in front of the entire class. No, I only asked how it feels to BE wrong. In point of fact, it feels exactly the same as the way it feels to be right. The intoxicating conceit that often accompanies the feeling that we are the smartest or the most righteous person in the room is usually a pretty heady trip that results in a crash landing, unless of course we wish to park in logical cul-de-sacs with people like Friedrich Nietzsche who once said, "there are no facts, only interpretations". But feeling wrong and confessing sin are not fruit that grow on the same tree, nor are feeling right and being the righteousness of Christ two conditions that are born of the same Spirit. However right or wrong I may feel, if I arrogate to myself the power to observe all of life  through the lens of my own jaundiced eye, without taking every thought captive to the lordship of Jesus Christ, among which is the FACT I live in a real world that everywhere displays real truth and real consequence, I should expect to descend into the same kind of madness that ultimately destroyed the real life of one Friedrich Nietzsche.

Point 3: “...according to human tradition…”

Human tradition fits like a custom-made suit--when that tradition is our own. It just feels right, and when our stuff--I mean, our way of speaking, our style of dress, our taste in music or food, the games we like to play, the manner in which we prefer to worship, the features of our culture--becomes the stuff against which we weigh everybody else’s stuff, how funny it is that we inevitably find their stuff wanting. When we exchange right worship of the true and living God for the idolatry of our traditions, our culture, our way of life, etc., we offend Him who made us, and we insult the brother who bears the divine imprimatur. When we  dress our own traditions in the noble toga of words like “normal” or” right”, while the traditions of others we regard as at best “exotic”, and at worst not just a little “weird” or just plain “wrong” we make ourselves aliens to those who are most like us, and strangers to the one who put on flesh and dwelt among us. But like culture, our traditions, and those of others, are expressions of our shared existence since the Fall, and as such lie within the pathos and promise of the father’s plan of redemption.

Final Point: “...according to the elemental spirits of this world…”

Again, the prospect of spending the week at Village of Hope, Guatemala forces within me a confrontation with myself. Coming to a place where the simple mandate to love with unselfconscious and unreserved sacrifice demands the spiritual maturity to know that I, as yet, know nothing--at least, I possess no knowledge as I ought to, if I suppose by the rood of my own righteousness or armed with my own powers of reason that I may somehow raise myself on hind legs to dialog with my maker as His moral equal. In back of the enormity of the work which God has prepared for me to do, and behind the dignity to be restored to lives to whom the kingdom belongs, there stands the God who dwells in unapproachable light before whom, like Job, I must say “Behold, I am of small account what shall I answer you? I lay  my hand over my mouth (40: 4).” It’s like in the movie, Cool Hand Luke, when Luke, a Vietnam vet whose life has stalled, displays a supposedly “righteous” disregard for all forms of authority by initially cutting the heads off of parking meters, all the powers of earth and heaven coalesce in the person of Boss Keen, the prison warden, to achieve the singular goal of breaking Luke’s will, so that he “gets his mind right.”

Well, I’m not Luke with the cool hand, and no earthly or heavenly purpose hinges upon me getting my mind right. Paul’s reference to the elemental spirits of this world reminds me that Augustine was in his right mind when he said that God has made us for himself, and our heart is forever restless until it finds its rest in Him. Paul’s language  recalls the elemental spirits of this world as “first things” or that which first appears. How wretchedly easy it is for me, when fixating on those things which first appear before my gaze, to pontificate from a dubious perch about what I think God is doing in the world, when to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God is more than enough reality to get me through my nights of Gethsemane.

Conclusion: “...and not according to Christ…”

Paul ends his admonition to us with the reminder that our spiritual compass points true north only when our lives are pointing to Christ. All our  ways and reasons, all our presuppositions and prerogatives must be reckoned according to Jesus Christ as the cause and context of reality. Culture, identity, and all of life’s purposes find their significance according to Christ. According to Christ, we love one another as we love ourselves, and according to Christ we must do his work in the world as heralds of the gospel, and as agents of His mercy and grace.