TO SEE WITH NEW EYES

Three events have contributed to this post’s title: first, at the ripe old age of fifty-one, I got laser surgery to correct my long-standing handicaps—myopia and astigmatism; second, I saw a collection of M.C. Escher’s drawings; third, I rewrote my comments on a chapter of a book.

With the LASIK, I saw for the first time what others had always described as “normal” vision. I could rise from my bed, having seen the alarm clock’s face from across a room, without first fumbling around for my misplaced glasses. I could scan a grocery store’s aisles for the products I wanted to purchase by simply reading the signs from one end of each instead of reconnoitering on foot to read them at arm’s length. I could drive a car without wearing corrective lenses. I could play sports while casually aware of my surroundings on all sides—not just the one framed in my glasses.

Having seen such woodcuts as Escher’s “Sky and Water I”, “Ascending and Descending” and “Waterfall”, I learned early—long before my LASIK surgery—the importance of seeing what is before one and knowing what it is. What made Escher’s drawings exceptional wasn’t their originality. He drew things that many others had drawn before him. Rather, it was his understanding that all drawings are two-dimensional renderings of three-dimensional realities. If one can create an illusion of depth while drawing one thing, why not extend that illusion to two or three separate depths? Why not draw several things, each with its own illusory depth, and juxtapose them for effect? This is, of course, just what he did—over and over again—with tremendous success.

Finally, having written a commentary on the fifth chapter of Thrall, McNicol and McElrath’s The Ascent of a Leader, I found I had to rewrite it. That chapter, “The First Rung”, is about taking the first step in ascending what the authors call “the character ladder”. They define that step as “Trust God and Others With Me”. As I am wont to do, I paraphrased even that little phrase: Trust God and Others Near Me. I was about halfway through the chapter when it suddenly dawned on me that my paraphrase did not sum up what the authors had intended. They had phrased their title as they had because of what they’d intended to convey. I’d read in it the meaning I did because that’s what fit in with my thinking. To me, “Others With Me” meant “Others Near Me”; to the authors, it was about “Trusting Others” with “Me”. Put another way, they could have called the chapter “Trust God and Others with My Self”.

This kind of trading of one referential frame for another has come to be called a “paradigm shift” and is precisely what is needed by anyone who would follow Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s POV is so radically different from anyone else’s that, without such a shift, it would be impossible for any of us to understand anything He has said. This is what He meant when He said “no one puts new wine in old wineskins”. Another way of saying that might have been, “no one explains a new idea with an old paradigm” or “no one tries to fit a new hypothesis into an old theory”. However, that would have been incorrect; people do that all the time. What people don’t do—or, at least, didn’t in His time—is put new wine in old wineskins or patch old fabric with new.

God has been showing me a “new” idea that requires that kind of paradigm shift: He doesn’t want the tithe; He wants the whole. Moreover, He doesn’t want just the whole; He wants the tithe and the whole: 110%. He might have said in a sermon, “You have heard it preached in your churches, ‘Bring in the whole tithe; give until it hurts.’ But I say to you, bring in all you can; give until it’s gone, and then give some more. For God has given to each what He would have him contribute to the community—no more and no less. Therefore, give what you have been given to give, and trust God for what your neighbor has been given to give.” If each member contributes his (or her) 100%, and trusts God for his (or her) neighbor’s 10%, then each will—in effect—be giving 110%. If, in a congregation of 40 members, each member contributes 110% of what s/he has been given to give, that will be 44 incomes contributed, not 4.

If you haven’t managed to follow this argument, let me try to explain it another way. The first 100% is you. All you have; all you are; all you do; all you say; your home; your cars; your income; your investments; your crops; your family; your friendships. The remaining 10% is what you stand to benefit from your membership in the community. Many people refuse to contribute to society because they fear that, in the words of the old Frankie Lane song, they’ll “live a life of regret...give much more than [they’ll] get”. It is true that we live in a fallen world. Most people are selfish. Out to get what they can and give the minimum in return, they’re inclined to ask, “what’s in it for me?”. Contributing all you are when your neighbor isn’t contributing anything hardly seems fair. On the other hand, Jesus dying for the whole world’s sins when no one else died for anyone’s sins isn’t fair either. God’s economy isn’t about being fair. It’s about unlimited, unconditional love.

If the Old Testament had Ten Commandments and required 10% of your profits, the New Testament has Two Commandments and demands your all. The two new-testament commandments are: Love God Completely and Love Your Neighbor As Your Self. Bearing in mind that “the remaining 10% is what you stand to benefit from your membership in the community”, if you begin by foreswearing your right to be loved by your neighbor, you’ve already satisfied the tithe. But remember, if your neighbor hates you, you’re only getting what you deserve: you’ve already foresworn that right to God as your tithe. Further, as Jesus told His disciples, the World hated Him before it hated them. Taken together, investing yourself and all you have—goods, kindred, life—and foreswearing your right to be loved by your neighbor are 100% + 10% = 110%.