“To Everything Turn, Turn, Turn…”

Thoughts on Continuing Conversion, Part 1:

It had been a long and busy day. I remember sitting on the bed, half heartedly watching a sit com or lamenting over the fact that another new reality TV show was about to air, when the commercial caught my attention. Cars buzzing around town and across the countryside. Nothing too out of the ordinary for television in the Motor City. But then the slogan appeared: “Choose any direction, as long as it’s forward….”

“As long as it’s forward”? Something about that just doesn’t sit right with me. I mean, did Toyota remove “Reverse” from its transmission? What happens if I am in a parking space at Great Lakes Crossing or pulling out of my driveway to start my morning commute? Is there never a time to step back, to put the car in reverse? Surely, Ken, our resident instructor, won’t stop teaching his young drivers-in-training how to check both mirrors, carefully crane their necks back and safely reverse, will he? Besides, if all of life is about constantly moving forward, why doesn’t Ken replace that brake on the passenger side of his car with an accelerator?

While the executives and ad specialists at Toyota surely don’t want us to take their catchy little slogan quite that seriously, I think that it does reveal and betray a serious problem in our society and in the church. The morning after I saw the commercial, I was heading north on M-24, cruising steadily ahead with all of the other drivers who were heeding Toyota’s advice and moving “forward.” While heading north, I put on the typical blinders drivers wear, watching the cars in front of me and periodically glancing to make sure that people were still following behind me. I was one elephant in a pack, pushing our way ahead. Then, I made the turn, my trusty Michigan left at Clarkston Road. I turned and left the masses, no longer heading “forward,” but pulling back out of the fray and stopping. As I sat waiting for the series of lights, I took a minute and opened my eyes to the world around me. As I looked, I saw Bruce, the most famous of Orion’s marginalized residents, leaning over his bike and all that he owns at the northeast corner of the intersection.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about that moment. In many ways it reflects our own experiences in life and in the church. We are bombarded with the message that we need to be constantly pushing forward, joining the masses of others who are doing the same. In the church this forward call often manifests itself both in those striving to achieve the next great goal and in those marching onward in the defense of tradition. Both can be guilty of wearing blinders, simply plodding ahead on cruise, accepting the way things have always been or uncritically jettisoning the past to move ahead into a new future. When this happens, both groups end up simply joining the masses, choosing their direction and assuming it’s forward, and marching in step with the masses on the same road.

Yet, as Christians we need to take seriously the call to step back out of the fray, the call to silence and repentance, the call to confession and conversion. When our vision is only directed forward, whether in the defense of tradition or the call to innovation, we often miss what God is doing in the world. We miss the need for a continuing conversion in our own lives and in the church. Toyota’s pithy slogan only gets half of the story right. While we must answer the Spirit’s call to march boldly into the future of God, we must also heed the calling of the Spirit to step back in repentance. Both calls are from God. As one church leader wrote in the 19^th century:

“A Providence watches over each man’s wandering through life. It provides him with two guides. The one calls him forward. The other calls him back. They are, however, not in opposition to each other, these two guides, nor do they leave the wanderer standing there in doubt, confused by the double call. Rather the two are in eternal understanding with each other. For the one beckons forward to the Good, the other calls man back from evil. Nor are they blind guides. Just for that reason, there are two of them. For in order to make the journey secure, they must look both forward and backward….”

- S. Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, 39-40.

This week, reflect on your own life. Are you heeding the voice that is calling you back into silence, repentance, and confession? Have you closed your ears to its call, listening only to the voice that says “keep moving forward”? How does the call of God to turn, to pull ourselves out of the river of the masses help you understand what it means to live a life of conversion?