When Christianity Confronts Culture

I’ve posted before on how much we as Christians often allow (especially our western, American) culture to affect our interpretation and understanding of Scripture. I was reminded of this today as I read some thoughts by one Robin Dugall who writes for a daily online devotional service.

Robin took her thoughts in a good direction, but I’d like to contemplate a different slant on her topic from the book of Matthew. What struck me, again, was how much we in affluent America tend to understand spirituality from our myopic entrenchment in our culture..

We think, for instance, that success, self sustenance and independence are important goals as human beings (Christian, or not). We want to be able to provide for ourselves and our families and not be a burden on anyone. Certainly seems noble, right?

Well, the late, Dutch Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen, who wrote some 40 books on living out our faith, thought otherwise. (Photo is Rembrandt’s version of Nouwen’s reflections in his short book, Return of the Prodigal Son.) Consider this statement by the famed author: “We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.”

Jesus said this about fruitfulness in Matthew, chapter 7: “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits”.

So, apparently, Jesus looks on us by what we are accomplishing for him (fruitfulness), not by what we’ve accumulated for ourselves and/nor for our future. Yikes.

As my wife and I contemplate further steps into our retirement, I hope we’ll be more sensitive to the scriptures than to our culture – though, admittedly, we must live in our culture.