Reading Mark Scandrette’s book Soul Graffiti: Making A Life in the Way of Jesus led me to feel humbled, challenged, guilty, and anxious about how I should change, excited about possibilities, and just in general, inspired to seek to live my life in the way of Jesus the best I can. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand and follow Jesus more closely in an action sort of way, not just a belief/dogma/doctrinal way. He provides at the end of each chapter suggestions for conversations to have and experiments to explore. It would be a great book for a group of people who are really serious about following Jesus to study together along with the Gospels. I would recommend the groups’ that do use this for a study would also actually include living out some of the experiments he suggest or come up with their own experiments in their own communities and families. An experiment my own family is taking on is fasting from TV. We write about this at our own blog at http://www.fastingandfeasting.wordpress.com/. Mark writes:
As important as conversation is, it is stillborn if it doesn’t eventually lead to common action. In our fragmented society it is too easy to have discussions about problems and how we wish things could be different without making a commitment to work together to see change occur. Through the example of Jesus and the disciples we are invited to move from passive speculation to creative action – from talking about prayer to practicing spiritual disciplines, from debating social issues to engaging affected peoples, from discussing justice and poverty to eating with the forgotten and hungry. (p. 56)
I don’t know right now that I could do something like what Mark and his family did, which is to move into the Mission District of San Francisco, CA in order to live his life in the way of Jesus, but I am inspired and greatly humbled by his example – being willing to take the obvious risks and challenges that come with living there. I strongly recommend you visit a couple of websites associated with Mark and his new monastic community called SEVEN and his personal website http://www.markscandrette.com/ and http://www.reimagine.org/.
Of course, understanding and following Jesus more closely, actually living in Jesus’ way will be a tough challenge for me (and probably to anyone, I’m sure Mark has his ups and downs in this regard) as I have developed habits and committed myself to things that really are barriers to my truly seeking to follow Jesus with my whole life, not just my intellectual beliefs and church attendance. In some ways, it could ruin my life the way I now live it and for whom I live it – e.g. my job, my family, my self. Scandrette says:
The promise of the “life you’ve always wanted” is actually the life no one is living. …I even hear ministers and leaders lamenting, “I don’t know if I can be the kind of pastor or priest I am expected to be and an authentic follower of Jesus at the same time. (p. 2)
This has been a huge question for me over the last several years. I remember when I was in seminary back in the late 1980’s applying for a position at a church-related institution. A friend of mine who worked there said he would write a letter of recommendation for me, which I greatly appreciated. After he completed his letter he came to me and said, “I finished that recommendation. I made you sound like Jesus.” I said back to him in dejection, “Great. Now, I’ll never get that job.” Even then, I felt the dissonance between the institutional church or Christian agencies, etc. and their expectations and the expectations of what I feel like Jesus would have of me or anyone who would choose to be a follower. It’s very unnerving to me to think that so many Christian institutions are more concerned about how they will or won’t let people into their communities as opposed to living their lives “for” the people of their communities and neighborhoods so that they know God’s love. Again Mark writes, “How can we love a God we cannot see? By loving people we can see” (p. 172). Now that makes a lot of sense to me.
It may sound like I’m being a little judgmental toward Christians. However, I include myself in their lot. On my own accord, I do not measure up either. Even when I think to really work at my own spiritual formation being intentionally active in living my life in the way of Jesus, I still often fail. I must depend on God. I must depend on my family. I must depend on my faith community to back me up and support my small efforts to experiment in living Jesus’ way and forgive my failures. And for me, this is one of the key things Mark’s book has taught me. Experiment with loving others. Don’t be afraid to take some risks in relating to people – to go places Christians have often feared to go because they somehow think they will be tainted by mere proximity. Don’t be afraid to involve yourself in the messiness of others’ struggles as they have need. Like Mark says, “Sometimes we learn to do things well by first having the courage to do them badly” (p. 40). And this is the kind of attitude I think I need to adopt – conversation and experimentation in living the way Jesus within my neighborhood, my family, my faith community and world.
