by Sandra Ostapowich
There’s a LOT of hype out there about this book, and it usually starts like this: “Well I haven’t read the book and don’t want to read the book, but here’s my opinion about what I’ve heard about this book…” Or: “So-and-so from this branch of theology liked it/didn’t like it, and that tells me everything I need to know about the issue.”
I’ve been taught some pretty wackadoo theology in my lifetime. And it’s a hobby of mine to read books and watch “religious” movies just for the fun of ripping them to theological shreds. On the other hand, I’m just as eager to find nuggets of good theology out there for public consumption as well. So I was skeptical and had low expectations of The Shack because there’s rarely good stuff out there, but I also had an open mind – willing to consider a perspective I hadn’t before, and to think in new ways.
On both counts, I wasn’t disappointed.
Generally speaking (because I could go on and on and on with specifics – my book is full of post-its and underlining!), The Shack is a bit like Pilgrim’s Progress in that it is not so much the plot line that is important but the dialogue between the different characters. In The Shack, the main characters are Mack Phillips and God – “Papa” or El-ousia, Jesus (as Himself), and “Sarayu” (a.k.a. the Holy Spirit). In a very small nutshell, Mack has a vision in which he spends a weekend hanging out with the Triune God at the dilapidated shack where his young daughter was molested and murdered – but in the vision, it’s a beautiful lakeside cabin.
What I really enjoyed about The Shack was that complex and substantial theological questions are handled in a very accessible and Gospel-filled way. This book tackles issues like the “otherness” of God, the problem of evil, original sin, relationship, the Cross, reconciliation between God and mankind, the Trinity, grace, freedom, love, and forgiveness in dialogue. As one who prefers to learn and teach through dialogue rather than lecture, I appreciated the conversational give-and-take as Mack’s understanding develops.
I was taught by the late, great Gerhard Forde that you can talk about theology, even talk about Jesus Himself and everything He did all day long, but until it is made personal – until it’s all for you – it’s not the Gospel. It doesn’t do anyone any good to talk about how Jesus died and rose unless Jesus died and rose for you. That personal aspect of the Gospel and the centrality of Christ’s work is made abundantly clear over and over again in The Shack. Every doctrine – even the Trinity itself, is explained as being for us. That one was new and different for me to think about, yet so consistent with the larger picture I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
Young is big on relationships. It’s a very strong theme throughout the vision. God’s relationship with Himself in the Trinity, and His relationship with us (only possible through Jesus), and our human relationships with one another. God didn’t create relationships to be hierarchical, but so that we could serve and love one another. Relationships are meant to be free, mutually submissive, and loving. And at the center of it is Jesus, Whose death and resurrection reconciled God to the world.
Some have suggested that The Shack is “emergent” because of its emphasis on personal relationship with God and its anti-institutionalistic stance on religion. This, no doubt, appeals to proponents of that movement. And while that may be true, I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. My impression is that Young does a great job with the Gospel, the for you behind everything God does, the problem of evil, submission, love, forgiveness, and even the atonement – better than I’ve probably ever encountered outside the Bible and Small Catechism. Salvation’s achievement is clearly taught and proclaimed in The Shack. Where it falls short is in the delivery of salvation and God’s gifts for us in Christ through His instituted means of Word and Sacrament. For this reason, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone I wouldn’t be willing or able to have a continued conversation with.
And that’s my biggest beef with The Shack – it stops short. Over and over and over and over again, Young emphasizes God’s desire for a relationship with all people through Jesus, as well as the fact that only He can and has done everything necessary for that to happen. But the reader is never told where she may go to continue that relationship aside from looking to her own feelings, “visions”, impressions, private revelations, dreams, etc. I don’t think Young would be opposed to finding God where He has promised to be for us – in His Word and Sacraments. My guess is that he just doesn’t know about it, or understand that God is present and continues the relationship in tangible, external ways. So, his readers probably won’t know about it either.
The problem with failing to address the delivery of God’s gifts for us is that it also leaves the reader wondering if we are being taught universalism in this book. Clearly, The Shack teaches universal atonement (so do we). But when there is no concrete delivery of the benefits from that atonement achieved for everyone through the means of grace, there is nothing to be rejected and therefore no real consequences for rejecting all that God has done for us. Young deftly dodges questions about this issue when interviewed, and carefully avoids it in the book. Strangely, for all his emphasis on everything being for us, Young seems to be ignorant of just how Jesus makes Himself concretely for us.
However, that’s exactly where we, as Lutherans especially, can step in and pick up the ball. We know where the Lord continues to come to us on a regular basis to give to us of Himself – not because we follow the rules better than other churches, or because we have the best rituals, but because that’s what He has promised to do for us. He has not only reconciled us with Himself through Christ’s death on the cross for our sins, He nourishes His relationship with us through His Word and through the daily dying to our sinful nature in Baptism, and through the nourishment of His own Body and Blood. We don’t have to go to a rundown shack and hope to have some sort of visionary encounter with God in nature, or our trust in our own feelings in order to have a relationship with God today. We know that the Lord comes to us, to love us, to forgive us, to give us His gifts, and to serve us every week in clear and tangible ways. He says so and His Word is True.
Sandra Ostapowich serves on the Higher Things Board of Directors as Secretary. She is Christian Education and Youth Director at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Loveland, CO.
Absolutely incredible isn’t it?
Absolutely incredible isn’t it? Saying no to the Son’s Good Friday salvation of the world-wedding banquet. Filling time for worship with all kinds of stuff. Everyone has an excuse. No, everyone has millions of excuses. But they all ring hollow compared with the abundant generosity and richness of the Son’s wedding banquet.
And so incredibly the King even supplies the clothes for the wedding party’s bash. Wedding garments. Provided most graciously. He clothes His guests with His Son’s perfection. His Son’s righteousness. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ,” Scripture says.
During a recent trip to the movie theater, I settled into my comfortable seat, ready for the film to begin. I breathed a sigh of contentment as the lights dimmed, the previews started, the smell of popcorn wafted to my nostrils…and the texting began. “Wait!” I thought to myself. “Why do small bluish cell phones seem to rival the big screen for the main source of light in this theater? Am I the only one in this theater that, after paying eight dollars for my ticket, actually wants to watch the movie!?!”
Even our relationship with God can be that way. We are so focused on the small things in front of us that we lose sight of the big picture. We worry about our finances, where our future is headed, or what people think of us. In our narrowed vision, only tuned in to the small bluish screen of our lives, we panic at the possibility that we might lose contact with anyone for even a small moment. We worry that we would miss some all-important news, or that we would never be able to regain that moment lost.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Those words from today’s Old Testament reading set up for us the opposition that frequently arises between our ways and the ways of the Lord. We have our notions of how He OUGHT to act; what He ought to do; how things should be. But He consistently blows us away with doing things in a way that appears downright silly to us. His ways, though, pan out in the end, and we’re left confessing that we’re not nearly so smart as we thought we were.
Come and see! That’s the constant invitation of the Christian Church when she encounters those who are skeptical of our Lord and His claims. We invite them to come with us to where the Lord may be found – here as we gather in His name, around His words, and His Holy Sacrament. We gather to Him, and we know the great task of evangelism isn’t persuading others to believe, but rather inviting them to come with us to meet Jesus of Nazareth and let HIM do the persuading.
Some have opined that Nathanael was reading or meditating on that passage about Jacob and the vision of the ladder, so that Jesus’ words would be all the more astonishing. He is the link between earth and heaven, the eternal Son come down to earth precisely so that we can ascend in and with Him to the Father. Not under a fig tree, upon a tree nonetheless, He will hang between heaven and earth, uplifted on His Cross, pouring out His blood, so that all who shelter beneath that TREE in faith, receive forgiveness for all sins and rescue from death and the devil, and can come home with Him to the Father’s house.
OK. I’ll admit it. Jesus is making me nervous. As a Lutheran, it’s been drummed into my brain my whole life: we are saved by grace, not by our good works. Jesus saves us, not what we do. Our sins are forgiven because Jesus died for them, not because we do good works for other people. So when this young expert in the Law of Moses says, “Love God. Love your neighbor” and Jesus says, “Do this and you will live”–that makes me nervous!
That is why, when the man gets beat up and robbed and left half dead in the story, the priest and the Levite pass by on the other side. What Jesus is teaching this lawyer who wants to justify himself is that HE, the man, is the guy who is beaten up and robbed. His righteousness is stolen by the devil and he is beaten to a pulp by sin. And when the Law comes, what does it do? It can’t help. It can’t save. It can’t rescue. It just tells us what to do and what will happen if we don’t do it. That is why the priest and the Levite, who represent the Law in Jesus’ story, just go on their merry ways. They can’t help. But a Samaritan does. He has compassion on the man. And having compassion doesn’t mean he just stands there and feels sorry for the guy, it means he does stuff. He cleans and bandages his wounds and takes him to the inn to recover. He pays the expenses.
Now, I don’t want you to think there is nothing to do for your neighbor now. The lawyer’s problem was that he wanted to say he loved God without doing anything for anyone else. God doesn’t need our hugs and kisses. We love God BY loving our neighbor. What Jesus is teaching this man and us is that our neighbor was not put on this earth to be the way in which we get ourselves to heaven! But our neighbor is given to us to love and serve. Jesus is teaching us to have compassion on others not by thinking about them but by DOING for them. When you see someone in need, don’t mess around with whether you like them or don’t like them or whether they’ve done anything for you or things like that. Rather, if you see them in need, help them out! And NOT because it saves you. Your salvation, your justification, is a done deal. Squared up by Jesus. The price is paid by the Samaritan and His money purse. You—you are free to have compassion on your neighbor, precisely because you DON’T have to impress God. Which is a good thing, since we often mess up loving our neighbor so much. Never mind! Back at it. When you find yourself trying to be religious without loving your neighbor, repent! Likewise, when you find yourself trying to justify what you do or don’t do to God, repent! Back to the inn, back to the church, back to oil and wine, that is, font and altar and Word. More Jesus for you. For He doesn’t leave you but comes back to check on you. That is, He comes over and over to give you His gifts for forgiveness and healing.
What a week! Saturday night (really Sunday morning, Beijing time) ended a week of often staying up until 1:30 a.m. watching our incredible swim team – and particularly Michael Phelps. Nightly we would see his sisters and mother, faithfully and devotedly in the stands, cheering and savoring his amazing feat! But one thing—one person—was noticeably absent: Michael’s father.
Now, for every tear shed or hurtful word uttered, Jesus has forgiven and restored you. No matter how many times you have broken up with friends, been devastated by loved ones, or crushed by divorce or separation, our loving Lord heals and renews you, giving the calm assurance that He and His Father are with you. Not that He is with you in some magical, intangible way. He unites Himself to you in His Holy Gifts as He promises: Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, the proclamation of His Holy Gospel, and in His Holy Supper! So when you see Jesus in these Holy Gifts, you see the Father as well!
When I went to see Clone Wars, I was expecting a corny, slapstick mockery of Star Wars ala Kim Possible, The Fairly Oddparents, or any of the other animated kid’s shows popular today. What I discovered was a slightly corny, but entirely enthralling return to the glory days of the Star Wars franchise.
The film’s biggest surprise, however, is that this movie rescues Anakin as a character. By training a padawan as reckless as himself, he gains some responsibility and learns to care about someone other than himself. He can understand Ahsoka better than anyone else, and we can tell that he feels a responsibility for her behavior because of that.
