how to look at a rose again for the first time

Perspectives – over the last two years I have been exploring and questioning the lens by which I view my faith. The lens of lessons taught, experiences learned, and stories remembered, as well as the movements from childhood to adolescence and finally adulthood. The interesting thing about perspective is that it is viewed from one’s current vantage point. In order to have a fuller perspective of something, one must try to view the object from at least 3 different viewpoints. Leonardo DaVinci used this 3-perspective approach to a subject matter with everything he created. In fact his journal, which was bought by Bill Gates for 30 million dollars in 1992, can only be read by holding it in front of a mirror. I thought this practice was very strange until I understood his methodology of 3 perspectives.

For a week or so I have been marinating on a certain passage in the scriptures. How might I look at Hebrews 10:25 with multiple perspectives? To avoid labels like conservative or liberal, I am just going to list them as I have been exposed to them in my life as a Jesus follower.

My first understanding of the passage comes from a Christian raised in a church environment all my life. So the “not forsaking the assembly” came with a connotation that was centered on the reality of “if the church doors are open, we are meant to be there.” In addition to this concept were the services themselves and the components that they comprised, like singing, sermons, and tithing. All of these things were meant to speak to living life, yet I spent so much time inside the church there was rarely any time to put them into practice. I remember many incredible manifestations of God in and around me as I reflect back on this vantage point of the assembly. During this period my first approach to this and any scripture was seen through the lens that this was meant literally and was written in order to speak to my current context of “the assembly” as church in a building behind the doors. I remember being taught as a child a visual illustration of this: Taking your hands, fingers first, and folding them in with the exception of your index finders and thumb pointing upward, one would say, “here’s the church, here’s the steeple, look inside and here’s all the people.”

The reverse side view comes from my life as a thirty-something. If the first view sees the assembly as the “church in a building behind the doors,” then the reflective side view sees the same “assembly” singing, speaking to issues of truth, and generosity expressed outside the brick and mortar. Also from this reverse vantage point the assembly is mainly seen as the people of faith in any given time or place. The songs and messages of truth and giving are no longer restricted to being expressed or received inside a building with the word “church” on the front of it, rather they can all be experienced by all people in situations that may or may not be labeled as Christian. Scripture from this vantage point is not limited to literal interpretation only, and must be first understood as it was said or written to the cultural context or the time and people it was written.

For example, the Gospels and the Epistles were written in the years 30-70 AD to a group of people who come from primarily Jewish orthodox or who were pagan gentiles having no orthodox at all. Further, it is quite possible to assume that the readers of the book of Revelations might identify the Beast as the Roman Empire, and the Dragon as Nero. Once again in the 1st century they may have taken the scriptures as literal just as I described in my first perspective, which gives credibility to the first view as a normal and natural response, but not the only valid viewpoint. In this second perspective, the passages in Revelations referring to the Beast might describe Germany, and the Dragon might be Hitler. In this sense it is history metaphorized. This is a short glimpse of my reverse side view of “the assembly,” meaning the people of faith who exist outside the brick and mortar of the church building and are not limited or restricted to searching for and of reclaiming the truth in all expressions. I think of the life story of Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place, is a great example of “the assembly” viewed in this second perspective.

So what might the 3rd perspective look like then? What might it look like to take the first view and the reflective view and look at them together from an observer perspective? Jesus seemed to speak to this idea when he would say things like “you have heard it said…” I think the writer of Hebrews might be speaking to the understanding of what it means to approach God. If the writer was writing to a group of Hebrew Christians living in Jerusalem in the first century, the use of “episunagoge” in Hebrews 10:25 is unusual and profound! Normally, the author would have used the word "sunagoge," or regularly scheduled worship services, as in James 2:2 where "sunagoge" is translated "assembly". But the Hebrew Christians are urged to "EPIsunagoge". The "EPI" in front of "sunagoge" adds the meaning "super", or "over and above". So the text here is not telling the Hebrew Christians to go to regularly scheduled church meetings, but to encourage one another on daily basis, not relying simply on once a week temple visits.

Think of the dimensional aspects of an object, let's say a rose. Imagine a flat, one-dimensional rose, the kind of rose sticker my five year old might get in pre-school. Now compare that image with that of a two-dimensional rose which gives visibly to the front surface of the rose. Lastly, a three-dimensional image of that rose would reveal not only the shape and surface, but would give depth and fullness that cannot be viewed in the first two viewpoints alone.

This three dimensional view of the rose is the way that I would like to view the assembly. I want to see the depth, the richness of the colors, even the shadows of the petals where I lose the shape, and even for the sweet aroma of the rose itself. The difficulty is that I must acknowledge the first two as real and valid in order to move to the next perspective. Then I could view the rose connected to the stem as it sinks down into the earth. As a channel of life source, the stem connected to the root dives inward to find water and nourishment. From that point I would look to the top, the petals each reaching towards the sun to collect the energy from the heavens above. With this view, looking inside, outside, around, behind, under, on top, through the center, and in between the spaces, maybe I might be able to really begin to understand the Creator Maker’s beauty called “the assembly.” In this
3-point perspective it is no longer necessary for me to believe in the rose; meaning the existence of the rose is not dependant upon my belief in order for it to be a reality. The point here is simply to find myself captivated by the rose and all its beauty.