On Congruence and Hazardous Work
"I'd like to actually be what people think I am."
I was astonished to read this statement by Eugene Peterson. Having just finished Winn Collier's magnificent biography on Peterson, A Burning in My Bones, I sat and gently wept for a good while, this statement foremost in my mind. Eugene Peterson is a giant! And yet here he is, as human and flawed as the rest of us.
Collier writes often of Peterson's hunger to live a life of congruency, "for his soul to be authentically surrendered to God, for his outward persona to be congruent with his interior." (p. 191) The hunger and humility in that statement is astonishing coming from a man who wrote, among 38 other books, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, his soaring poetic translation of the Bible, a project initially undertaken in hopes that his congregation would absorb the Scriptures into their hearts more readily.
That word congruent has continued to stir my heart since finishing Collier's book. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes of the "inner man being renewed day by day." Peterson's hope-filled rendering in The Message exclaims,
So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.
Unfolding grace. Not instantaneous, but unfolding, a slow process of daily living, step by step, small transformations.
All of this reminded me of Peterson's seminal work on discipleship, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, which centers around the Psalms of Ascents (Psalms 120-134). In chapter 1, Peterson writes,
One aspect of world that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that if something can be done at all, it can be done quickly and efficiently. . . There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. (pp. 10-11)
Collier records that later in his life, after hearing a conference sermon, Peterson noted in his journal, Slight uneasiness - is this preaching or religious drama? I guess what I am mostly interested in these days is holiness. I am on the watch for saints. (p. 191)
The pursuit of congruence, of holiness, was lifelong for Peterson, and although I often sensed an undercurrent of exasperation around this subject while reading his biography, I was also filled with hope at the presence of grace I could not escape. Collier writes often about the wonder and humility with which Peterson approached God and his Word, and his belief that its meaning and message for our lives was endless, bottomless.
Hazardous Work
In one of my favorite chapters in A Long Obediencein the Same Direction, Peterson writes about the "hazards" of the life and work of Christians. He writes,
Every day I put my faith on the line. I have never seen God. In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe. That's a risk. (p. 70)
The work of hoping and loving is hard work - hazardous work, according to Peterson,
And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily - open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride. (p. 71)
And yet, Peterson concludes, despite the hazards, and especially despite our own failures, "the fundamental reality we live with is God who is 'for us . . . GOD's strong name is our help.'" Peterson's translation of Psalm 124 captures this:
Oh, blessed be GOD!
He didn't go off and leave us.
He didn't abandon us defenseless,
helpless like a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.
We've flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we're free as a bird in flight.
GOD's strong name is our help,
the same GOD who made heaven and earth.
A Good Work
This life of congruency, of choosing every day to walk in the light of grace, to allow God to bring our head and heart in alignment, to purge our motives, to enable us to "be what people think I am" really is "hazardous work." Peterson is right: the life of faith is a "long apprenticeship." Realizing that I get to wake up tomorrow, Lord willing, put my feet on the floor, and move through the moments of my day with my ears tuned to a voice that calls me to this very congruence Peterson wrote about fills my heart with such hope. I'm grateful for people like Peterson who, despite their own inner wrestling, pressed on and, by God's grace, participated in God's work.
There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. (Phil 1:6, The Message)
Friends, the road of obedience is long. It is hazardous. But God will not "abandon us defenseless." May God grant us the grace to joyfully rest in this truth as we walk the long road home.