Render Unto Caesar

Have you ever seen an architectural rendering? You know, one of those two dimensional stylized representations of a future reality that doesn't exist but SHOULD because it would be so awesome and would solve all of planet Earth's problems? Like a 200 story high rise that is covered with vegetable gardens, or a mixed-use space where young urbanites can live and work and play and shop in a walkable paradise? It doesn't exist yet, but 'build it and they will come.' 

I have an admission: I hate renderings. Why? I don't know. I just like life in the real world. I have a low bs threshold, and real life has a way of not always fitting into neat prescribed models. I remember watching Jurassic Park as a kid when it first came out and thinking, "this is a HORRIBLE idea!" And it was, in the end, as all the dinosaurs escaped or something and turned on people. Maybe it's my acute awareness of the Fall, not only the rebellion in my own life, but in the world in which we live, that is wary of such social utopias.

This past year we saw a kind of political rendering that was drafted prior to November, where the model was pre-scribed and pre-meditated and all we as citizens had to do was fit ourselves into it. But the majority of predictions were simply wrong in the end because they adopted a narrative that precluded what didn't fit--people 'outside the rendering' who were, in the end, tired of the agenda-driven BS and didn't want it anymore. 

When we see the emergence of the early Christian community in the book of Acts, it doesn't come as a prescribed model, but an unfolding of life lived in the Spirit. Even the disciples' expectation of the coming Messianic Kingdom needed to be adjusted, as they ask, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). But what do they go about doing after Pentecost? "They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers...to every day meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes." (Acts 2:42; 46-47). Not only that, but "awe came upon everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles" and "they ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people" (2:43, 46).

This life, along with the preaching of the Gospel and the visible witness of the martyrs willing to die for their love of Christ at the hands of their persecutors, was what fueled the growth of the early Church. "See how these Christians love one another," Tertullian marveled. 

I used to read and write a lot of poetry growing up. The best poets, as I learned, don't write about "love" or "truth" in the ephemeral macro, but bring such grandiose themes to life in a kind of sacramental grounding in the everyday. One of my favorites is "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white

chickens.

I don't trust renderings, because they don't speak to me. They live in an urban architectural vacuum, the world of proposals and blueprints and speculation. I need a model, not on paper or a computer screen, but one that is lived and real, of how to "do life" as a follower of Jesus.

For me, in my Christian walk, the Saints are the answer; they are the anti-rendering. They don't live in a spiritual place of make-believe, but in the real world, the same world we inhabit. They're men and women just like you and me who follow in the footsteps of Christ, who live and love in flesh and blood while pointing the way to something beyond this world. They live within the same limitations as we do, were born into the world in the same way we were, and yet they open us up the possibility of a great expansiveness, of something more. Not in a sterile, self-serving mall-of-the-future 2D proposal, but a sacramental, spirit-filled life founded on breaking everyday bread (the food for our bodies) as well as the Eucharist (the food for our souls).

I became Catholic because I saw someone who was Catholic, who had great joy, abundance of life in the blessing of many children, and a deep and unshakable confidence in an afterlife that precluded fear of death.  We became open to life, not because I read the Theology of the Body (I still haven't), but because we met families who trusted God with their fertility and by virtue of that trust embodied the wisdom of Solomon: "Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox" (Prov 14:4). We learned to love by spending time with those who loved us with the love of Christ. We were converted because of LIVES LIVED, not just words spoken.

Don't underestimate the power of your everyday witness when it comes to the Gospel. Live with zeal, and love with integrity. You never know who may be watching you, searching for more than this artificially rendered life has to offer.