“Security and stability are the rejection Sovereignty and Providence.” […] in our attempts to stabilize our lives, to be financially settled, or to secure our gains in whatever form you may imagine, we take part in the process of taking power out of the hands of God (I am assuming the freedom to do so) and placing our trust in the idol made of paper.”
These were the words Taylor gave to inspire this round of blog entries. Actually, I believe “provoke” was the word he used, and rightly so, for I am provoked. I can hardly articulate why, however, because almost immediately after reading those words (I won’t presume to guess how much they express Taylor’s own views), the song “Take My Life” begins playing in my mind’s ear.
If you’ve been in any contemporary worship services over the last decade, you probably know this song. One of the verses goes, “Brokenness, brokennes is what I long for, / Brokenness is what I need. / Brokenness is what You want for me.”
I hate this verse.
I hate this verse for many reasons, but only one is apropos to this discussion. When I listen to crowds wail this prayer, I hear an implicit repudiation of stability and security--the conditions and the products of wholeness--in favor of the “holiness” allegedly produced by brokenness.
A prayer for brokenness is a prayer some must pray: that I grant. Let the stiff-necked, the arrogant, the self-satisfied pray this prayer, if they have the wisdom. But to suggest (as “Take My Life” does) that “brokenness” is equal to the other virtues requested in the song--faithfulness, righteousness, and holiness--smacks of ingratitude and masochism.
It is not Taylor’s fault that his prompt roused my indignation over sloppily-written worship choruses, but in a way I am thankful for the connection. Without it, I might not be willing to argue that denying the goodness of stability is just as blasphemous as thinking stability is a worthwhile end of the Christian life.
Stability is better than instability. Security is better than danger. Call me old-fashioned, but I will stand by those assertions.When teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus said, “Give us this day our daily bread,” not “Let us go hungry for the sake of being hungry.”
At the same time, stability and security are merely instrumental goods. They can and must be laid aside for the sake of loving our neighbors, for the sake of justice, for the sake of making our hearts open to God.
My parents certainly modeled this truth for me.
I grew up really poor, although I didn’t realize we were poor until I was nearly grown. As a child, I thought it normal to receive canned goods from family members at every holiday; to rejoice because Daddy hit a turkey with his van and then to eat said turkey; and to have my first new, store-bought dress my freshmen year of high school. (Of course, how I made it through thirteen years of public school thinking all this was normal remains a mystery).
We had so little money because my parents were (and remain) campus ministers. They placed their vocation before financial stability. This is especially true for my mother: officially, only my father was hired to the ministry position, but my mother, unwavering in her commitment to her calling, has now worked for twenty-seven without an income of her own.
Growing up in this way had many benefits, not least of which is making a grad student’s salary feel quite luxurious. However, the marvelous paradox of growing up in such financial instability is that I discovered that our family’s wellbeing was grounded on something far more stable than a salary: the love of God, flowing through God’s people. During my childhood and adolescence, I saw wealthy families give joyfully out of their abundance, providing my family with cars (three altogether), clothes, canned goods, and more. Their wealth manifested God’s providence in our lives.
Maybe that’s why I defend stability. In the vocabulary of my childhood, “stability” meant not prosperity, but abundance. Sometimes the abundance came from our resources, but often it was granted, given, shared by others.
Now, had we prayed to these friends and their bank accounts, instead of to God, then we would be guilty of denying God’s power and trusting the “idol of paper.” But stability isn’t the only thing that can become an idol. Perhaps that is why the prompt provoked me so; it implied that stability is somehow more God-denying than other instrumental goods. It called to mind rhetoric of revolution (which I usually find specious), and myths of redemptive violence, for instability is a form of violence, even if a quotidian, wearying-not-warring kind of turbulence.
I love stability--I bless stability--for what it can testify: the love of parents who work to make a safe home for their children, the certainty of a friendship, the confidence that one can indeed do the work set before her. The challenge, as always, is to make stability the ground for hospitality, for love, for service, rather than for self.
Security is--like family, reputation, freedom, or rights--something beautiful and noble, worth preserving but not worth worshipping. Our security can be an acceptable sacrifice, not because it is sinful, or because brokenness is equal to righteousness, but because it is good, and life-giving, and human.
“I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” 2 Samuel 24.24
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