In Boredom: the Literary History of a State of Mind, Patricia Meyer Spacks explains that boredom as such is a relatively recent invention, from the eighteenth century at the latest. Before that we had melancholy (which was a kind of affliction of the spirit) and, further back still, acedia (which was a sin). What’s distinctive about boredom is that we don’t see it as either a condition of our own selves or a sin, but rather something that just happens to us. When we’re bored, we don’t think there’s anything wrong with us: we think the world is at fault. Stupid old world — it doesn’t interest me. And interesting me is the world’s job.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Meditation on the Innovation of Boredom
Friday, August 20, 2010
Builders
As a seasoned pioneer missionary with twenty five years of church planting and upwards of fifteen thousand ministry miles under his belt, the apostle Paul unveils his crowning strategy for Spain in his letter to the Romans. As far as first century Roman Empire dwellers were concerned, Spain was the western “ends of the earth” (India to the east), and therefore the eschatological fulfillment of God’s pursuit of his glory (Is 66.19).
He writes: “I no longer have any room for work in these regions...I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you” (Rom 15.23-24).
There is an explicit and implicit charge in these matter-of-fact logistical plans for the first century Roman church and twenty-first century American church. Paul betrays a twofold stratus of commission calling. Explicitly, Paul highlights the calling of “foundation layers” such as himself - men and women commissioned to preach the gospel where it has yet to be heard.
This is Paul’s calling. And as a man duly called he expects “help,” propempo, the NT technical term for missionary support - funding, lodging, travel, regional coworkers, etc. Its Paul’s calling but the church’s task. Spain is Rome’s opportunity.
But there’s also an implicit charge. There is work to be done by “builders,” those Christians left behind. By this point, Paul has scarcely sprinkled the eastern Mediterranean world with a handful of fledgling house churches in major metropolises.
Take the church in Corinth for example. As far as we can tell several house churches of fifty plus believers constituted Paul’s plan for Greece. After that he felt claustrophobic in the region to know that one solitary city had that many Christians. There was no room for him to work.
The implicit charge is that members of these house churches build. They take Paul’s meager eighteen months of planting (Corinth) and begin to water. They organize themselves into a healthy church; care for their members; preach the Word, disciple, serve the Supper, guard the gospel; reach out to neighbors and coworkers with the good news; and begin thinking about multiplication in Greece.
This is the builder’s call, no less than the pioneer foundation layer. I suspect for all his gifts, Paul would have made a lousy builder. That’s probably why far from disparaging Christian builders in Rome, he greets them with reverent admiration in the following chapter.