Texts: Genesis 1:31-2:3; Isaiah 2:1-4; Mark 1:14-15; 2 Corinthians 5:16-18
Speaker: Joel Miller
Three weeks ago, I went white water rafting with our youngest daughter, Ila, on the New River in West Virginia. It was Ila’s first time, my third. Each time included a long bus ride from the check-in area to the put-in spot on the river. Each time the main guide gave instructions the whole ride, yelling over the noise of the loud retired school bus, with a hoarse throat, because they do this every day. On the two previous, higher risk, trips – without Ila – this largely involved telling us all things that could go wrong. Despite this, each time, I was struck by one of the key practices of rafting safety. It’s called “point positive.”
In summary, there are plenty of obstacles on the river – rocks, branches, the protruding remains of a train car that careened off the nearby tracks decades ago, etc. There are plenty of routes you shouldn’t take and, depending on the level of difficulty, some routes that present real danger. When approaching such a challenge, the guide will always point positive. That is, they will point in the direction you should go rather than the ones you should avoid.
Just as important, if your boat does get hung up on a rock, a guide will point in the direction you should lean to allow the water current to push you safely free. And if you do end up in the water, a guide will point in the direction you should swim toward. They will not point toward an undercurrent and yell, Don’t go there.
They will always, they repeat, loudly, on that loud bus, point positive.
Along with being consistent and clear, this addresses a fundamental feature of human psychology. We tend to go in the direction we’re looking. If you’ve ever looked out the window at something interesting while driving, and found yourself drifting that way, you know what I mean. This is apparently called “target fixation.” Especially in times of stress, our muscle memory subconsciously aligns with our vision. The object on which we focus our attention draws us to itself. That’s target fixation. The solution, or at least a practice that counters this tendency, is to point positive.
It doesn’t take much imagination to realize this applies beyond rafting. As pastors occasionally joke to each other when they come across some nugget of wisdom out there in the world – “that’ll preach.”
In therapy and social work, this looks like a strengths-based approach which goes beyond naming what’s wrong with a person. Columbus City Schools and many other districts utilize PBIS, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. In the world of community development, an asset-based approach builds on the good already present rather than mere problem-solving.
Our “Rise Up! Take Courage!” series has mentioned plenty of hazards in the water of our current human predicament. Last week we explored anger as a powerful expression of deep care, a living internal flame. The point positive philosophy is not at all about neglecting the hard things, or pretending there’s nothing to be angry about. It’s about how to find the way through.
For this final week of the series, I thought we could go on a much abbreviated but hopefully scenic ride through scripture for some highlights of what point positive looks like in the biblical tradition. There will be 4 points of interest, each having some rapids with potential for danger, each with a way through. For you English majors out there already sniffing it out, this will indeed be an exercise in the extended metaphor. We are going to ride this raft all the way home.
The first area is right at the put-in spot. The opening chapter of Genesis as it leads into chapter 2.
Genesis 1:31-2:3
31 God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 2:1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. 2 On the sixth[a] day God finished the work that God had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all the work that God had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that God had done in creation.
There are any number of hazards at the beginning of scripture. There are any number of hazards anytime humans tell an origin story about who we are and where we come from. Even the scientific story of evolutionary natural selection can emphasize life as inherently violent and competitive, survival of the meanest, or emphasize the underlying cooperative nature of life’s advances – even the cells in our body a cooperative dance where different parts give and receive from one another and thus survive and thrive.
Contrary to some Christian teachings, Genesis is not a scientific account. But it does have to do with underlying questions of meaning. What it proposes is that there is a fundamental goodness to material reality. The Creator, Elohim, affirms this after each day of creation, declaring it good. Creation culminates in the Sabbath, a day so sacred even God honors it.
The authors, or editors, or keepers of the Genesis tradition were well aware that there were problems in the world. But they start the whole story by pointing positive, toward the inherent goodness and astonishing gift of life.
The Sabbath isn’t so much a set-in-stone law that we can keep or break. It’s more like a way through the stones and rocks of unending work and social striving that will break us if we stay fixated on them. In the biblical imagination, the way to navigate through the hazards of weeks and weeks on end is to go through the still waters of the Sabbath. In an age when it’s hard to set aside an entire day to rest from activity, we can think of different Sabbath-practices. These are the things that restore our soul. They put us in direct contact with the goodness of existence. Sabbath points toward the good way through.
The next point of interest on this way-too-brief trip through scripture is the prophets. Specifically, Isaiah.
Isaiah 2:1-4
2:1The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
3 Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war any more.
If you read any one of the Hebrew prophets, it will soon be clear, they are not always in point positive mode. In fact, they most often are not. Look out for that rock of injustice. Watch out for that undertow of idolatry. You’re about to get flipped over because you made an alliance with the wrong foreign king. You’re flailing in the water because you did all these things and only a few of you are going to find your way out. They are, much of the time, that hoarse-throated guide on the loud bus telling you all the ways you could die. And, like that guide, they keep coming back to point positive. The great Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote that the prophet has two primary tasks. One is to criticize – to highlight where we are going astray. The other is to energize – to point toward the beautiful vision of beloved community.
For Isaiah, this shows up in the form of this well-loved passage. The nations gather on one mountain, Zion. They settle their disputes through divine arbitration, nonviolently. They take out their swords, or guns, or bombs, or drones, and beat them into plowshares, or garden tools, or solar panels, or toys for kids.
One of the things I love about this passage is at the beginning. “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” We tend to go in the direction we look. Whatever we focus on is what draws us. Isaiah, at least in this moment of prophetic inspiration, has a target fixation on a vision of reconciliation and peaceful co-existence. It’s not what he sees when he looks around him in the present, but that’s not where he directs our attention. He points toward a far horizon and says, in effect, You see that? Let’s go that way. There are countless dangers between here and there, but keep that vision in your mind’s eye, and by the grace of God, we just might make it.
The final two points on the trip are from the New Testament. One from Jesus, and one from Paul.
Mark 1:14-15
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of[God 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
When it comes to pointing positive, that last phrase speaks for itself: good news, also translated as gospel. It was a word already in circulation, used by the emperor when he wanted to send out news of the emperor’s birthday, or a military victory, or draw attention to the general prosperity enjoyed under Roman rule. Good news. The stock market is up. Let us rejoice in this gospel.
The good news, the alternative gospel, Jesus invites his listeners to believe is not about anything the kingdom of Rome has done for them, but about something he calls the kingdom of God. In order to see it, they have to change their mind, or, they’ll have to turn. That’s the literal translation of repent. Turn your gaze this way, and believe in this gospel.
Rather than Isaiah’s far off horizon of the mountain of the Lord, Jesus introduces all this in a rather remarkable way. “The time is fulfilled.” In other words, it’s actually happening right now, and I’m about to show you what it looks like, Jesus says.
It’s a bold and, arguably, historically naïve proposal. Jesus ends up on a cross, and the Roman machinery of empire pulls another would be Messiah underneath its powerful current. But rather than damning up the river, it opens up this whole new channel, a way through, which Paul and other early apostles dedicated their life to.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view;[a] even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view,[b] we no longer know him in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there[c] is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being![d] 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
Paul calls this Christ-channel way “a new creation.” It’s something that happens within a person. And it’s something that happens to a community. It rearranges relationships. It breaks down ethnic barriers. The new creation rediscovers the fundamental goodness that has always been present within creation. Importantly, it is something in which we participate right now.
For Paul, the new creation becomes visible through reconciliation. That’s a six-syllable word for mending broken relationships, which is even more syllables, but maybe a more helpful description. In Paul’s time the primary relationship he had in mind was between Jews and Gentiles. In our time we can expand that to mending our broken relationships across national borders, relationships within families. Our relationship with ourselves. And, of course, the new creation cannot take place without mending our relationship with creation. And with time. Reclaiming Sabbath practices.
To point positive is not to ignore obstacles and dangers. It’s precisely because there are so many obstacles, and the dangers are so real, that pointing positive is so vital. As in the highest levels of rafting, which I haven’t done and won’t do but can imagine, it’s a matter of survival.
The way through, the way to Rise Up! Take Courage! is to pay attention to guidance that points positive, wherever that might be coming from. It’s one thing to be aware of the dangers and all the ways this could go wrong. It’s another thing to see a vision, however far off, of which direction to row. And it’s another thing to be part of that now. To practice Sabbath. To beat swords into plowshares. To believe the time is fulfilled. To participate in the new creation.