All That Matters Pt. 2: Spotting the Good Apples
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
(This is part 2 of what may be an ongoing series regarding “fruit” when it comes to Christian, pastors, elders, etc. Here’s part 1.)
I have to write this, per my fiancé’s suggestion. She said she loved my previous piece but wanted me to expand, and so here I am attempting to answer her question right as she finished my blog.
How then do we spot the fruit?
It’s very easy to spot bad apples, and I think I even alluded to how simple it can be to do so long before scandals break out.
But, like most people, I think I am tired of negative press. Controversy begets controversy, and most often controversy exists as a ploy for attention which, if our social media driven, 24/7 paced, polarizing now 2022 context has taught us anything, is the last thing we need.
Yet perhaps is a place to look for when we think of who to listen to.
Perhaps a sign of good fruit is a fruit that doesn’t need to shout about how good it is.
Greg was so nice. Like intensely so.
It’s rare for us to envision niceness being intense but it was so in this instance. When I first walked into his house hidden away in SW Portland, full of Buddha and Christ imagery everywhere, there was a tranquil quality evident immediately.
The very space he lived in displayed the very space he showed. It was… different.
No bustle, no stress, no pressure. Just a sense that there was weight you brought into the room that was important, rather than weight in the room that made you feel heavy.
This group I joined was a highly sensitive person group, HSP for short. It was probably largely occupied with enneagram 4s like myself, 2s, 1s, and perhaps some 9s thrown in there too. Before I knew the enneagram, went back to church, even began reconsidering Jesus, I had to reconsider myself.
I’ve always been a deep feeler. Although not the point of this blog, I think I started this whole thing to honor this huge drive within me to unpack the contradictions in me, especially when God was thrown into the mix. I’m a sinner & saint; I’m grungy & clean-cut; I’m flawed & moral. Here’s Brennan Manning:
When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.
I think one of the things gone wrong in American Christianity is the rejection of the paradoxical self. One of the reasons we look to a charismatic and enigmatic modern messiah rather than Jesus is that the charismatic messiah’s codes are easier to follow (if far more damaging to follow too). Whether it’s Driscoll, Zacharias, Wentz, Osteen, fill in the blank. Even good ones I like and who were reasonably moral, like the just quoted Manning or Comer or Merton or Nouwen, they can’t be the guy.
The guru. The “chosen one.”
Neo from the Matrix isn’t paying homage to Driscoll. Superman dying and rising again isn’t pointing to Merton. Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn aren’t all subtle signposts to our Lord and Savior Donald Trump.
They’re all chumps compared to Jesus. I’ll throw my name into the mix.
I’m not enlightened, I’m not special, I’m not more knowledgeable.
I’m just as broken, just as suspect, just as incapable of being my own savior.
I don’t want the fruit of my own spirit. While I reject the notion I am a horrible sinner barely worth God’s time, I freely acknowledge my own spirit’s fruit is often self-serving, mixed in its motives, and incapable of growth let alone pruning.
So when I stepped into Greg’s house, the short, Yoda looking gay Buddhist formerly Christian, I wasn’t wanting a Buddha guru in the stead of a charismatic celebrity pastor. I just wanted someone to talk to, and I mean really talk too.
Over time I stopped going to the group but then I had a season where he was my life coach.
And Greg, the unbelieving (sort of; more on this later), Buddhist openly in sin and yet clearly kind and compassionate, taught me how to accept myself.
The good, the bad, and just how important, core, and essential to embrace the ugly too.
Here’s Henri Nouwen:
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
In this season of waywardness, this not Christian man somehow stirred in me this deeply Christian identity; that I was beloved, cherished, valued just for being Caleb, long before going to church or learning theology or not watching porn.
I haven’t talked to Greg in years and I’m not a Buddhist; although I admire their compassion and their practice-based life, there’s no way I could reject the Christ experiences of a personal God I’ve had by the dozens. But Greg was Christ-like to me in a time where I didn’t attend church.
And helped me see that to be a Christian and spiritual person was to eat from good trees wherever or however they come. Just like my friend Morgan.
I’ve written before about the wizard trope. They are always my favorite character in stories.
It just dawned on me; most wizards don’t have a lot of apprentices. In fact, it’s almost core to the wizard mythos that they not have too many people follow them.
Truthfully, it seems to be the same way with Jesus.
Sure, he had thousands of people listen to his sermons and seek for his healing, deliverance, and redemption, but when push came to shove, there were twelve of the closest of the close who followed Him around, literally and figuratively, the most.
Maybe one of the issues raised before with the fall of Mars Hill and Willow Creek and any other megachurches or small churches for that matter is the pool of disciples is “too big.”
Simply put, too big of a quota for one person to have as a following. One man can’t be guiding thousands of people of how to follow Jesus unless their last name is Christ or they wrote most of the New Testament. That’s just a fact.
Maybe it’s better if one guy guides a dozen rather than twelve thousand. Perhaps there’s less of a chance for moral failures, power abuses, and abounding deconstructions if the construction we endorse is on a smaller-scale, more intentional, and more specific to the dozen people following rather than being focused around twelve thousand constructing their whole faith around one good Ted-talk guy.
But, this is too idealistic, right? Celebrity pastordom is here to say, so it seems. People like expediting spirituality to one good-looking charismatic guy. Perhaps it’s core to human nature to base far too much on far too few sources.
Yet still, I feel a need to push back.
One of the things I felt was important for me to do throughout my tenure at my church, Bridgetown, was to talk people off of the John Mark as messiah hill. Similarly to Mars Hill, sometimes people quoted from or were more hyped about John Mark’s teaching rather Jesus’ teaching that John Mark simply studied and tried to reiterate for a liberal post-church city starved for intelligent AND biblical teaching.
The most honorable thing I think my pastor ever did, actually, was to step down. He himself stated he needed time to rest, to do a real sabbatical, and to spend his ministry time in a smaller niche than the “best and smartest” west coast pastor.
I think the platform and reach and esteem and regard he carried would invariable lead to some kind of meltdown in his life. For that matter, ANY spiritual and Christian person’s life when people put too much stock in the good things you have to say and write.
One of the reasons I count him as a “good apple” is that very humility of wanting to step down from such acclaim. “Bad apples” want to broaden their branches, roots, outreach, ministry, and platform, ALWAYS. Be weary with every single pastor who is looking to broaden his brand rather than shepherd his sheep.
On a smaller and different scale, this is why I count Morgan as my spiritual director and friend and as a “good apple.” Because his relationship with me is based solely on his desire to grow my fruit, not to display how great his own fruit is.
Morgan is not Buddhist like Greg but he is kind, just like Greg. And his reason for being kind is also unlike Greg; you can tell he is really marked by God rather than through enlightenment or good religious practice.
I found the need to have a mentor in my life circa 25, 26. I was going back to church, had led an unsuccessful small group the best I could, and was looking for spiritual growth, and, full disclosure, guidance about how to finally successfully date a woman from an older dude who was married. See, always mixed motives.
One of the things I noticed first about Morgan, same with Greg, and unlike bad apples I had known before is, when we met, it was all about me. That sounds strange, but what I mean is that he had a singular goal; how can he best tap into the Christlike strengths of this guy along with refining the weaknesses too.
So many other church men I had known before were masters at semi-guilting theological pep talks. My life and my struggles and my strengths and my quirks and my personality weren’t important; adopting their theological perspective was.
This goes back to the presuppositional truth thing I mentioned before in the previous blog. Christianity has for far too long tried to find the Jesus “formula” to circumvent discipleship. Said differently, Christians have tried to oversimplify the most complicated, tiring, exhausting, and life-altering thing about Jesus; that is, actually following Him.
So when Morgan was just curious about who I was as a person, I felt curious about why he was recommended by the executive pastor. Surely there’s a pep talk coming. We are minutes away from a trite quote from an old-school theologian. Likely I wasn’t man enough or Christian enough or bible-reading enough, right?
Turns out… wrong. He praised me for my openness. Commended my desire to follow Christ authentically. Enabled me to dive into family of origin wounds, existential angst, church hurt, you name it. Nothing was off the table. What mattered was that anything was ok at the table. What mattered was for my heart to grow closer to the heart of God.
Good apples tend to sweeten apples nearby. This tendency to encourage so deeply has birthed within me a desire to uplift others I think I always had before but was rarely motivated to do so earlier in my churchgoing. It has benefitted my work with kids, boosted my ability to be a good friend, and is really reaping good fruit in my wonderfully pure relationship with my now fiancé.
My fruit isn’t perfect; it can’t be. Same with Morgan’s. Same as any guy, except Jesus.
But bad apples act like they are the apple, ie Jesus.
Yet no one can be.
Discipleship has us all struggling but in such a good way. It’s rewarding and freaking hard work. It’s up and it’s often down. It’s a lot of yes, and a lot of no, but more than both, it’s a lot of “I’m not sure, but let’s discover together in prayer, Scripture, worship, and time.”
Good apples sweeten other apples nearby. Bad apples tend to produce more apples… but they tend to be bad too.
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
As is usual with my writing, I’m not sure I answered my fiancé’s question succinctly. Perhaps there’s actually a question behind what’s the fruit. But maybe like my past blog, I’ll end it simple, quote scripture, and meditate on actually taking it seriously for it’s face value and for what it says we can take not about when we think of “good fruit,” ie the fruit of the spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.