on finding havers

Just a bit more from Ann Spangler (from Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus) on being a haver…

There’s more to being a haver than just being a Christian friend. A haver is a fellow disciple who earnestly desires to grapple with others over issues of faith – someone who wants to delve into God’s Word, to be challenged and refined. A haver is like a spiritual “jogging partner” – someone for whom you’ll crawl out of bed on a rainy morning, putting on your running shoes instead of hitting the snooze button. Once you’re up and running together, your pace is a little faster, you keep going a little longer. You are pushed intellectually and spiritually. If we really want to mature in faith and as disciples, we need to develop relationships that force us to grow, by getting ourselves some haverim…

Becoming each other’s haverim is an effective way to fulfill Jesus’ command to raise up disciples. Rather than viewing ourselves as the “rabbi” and others as our “disciples,” becoming haverim allows us to take on the role of “co-disciples.” We can help others grow by learning right alongside them.

Finding, choosing haverim…

It strikes me that Jesus chose the twelve, he handpicked his talmidim (talmid = disciple) which instantly made them havers to one another. What strikes me is that they didn’t pick their havers, Jesus did by putting them together. Even when they were paired two by two and sent out, I doubt they got to choose their partner. Perhaps this is where we go off right from the start. We go through life handpicking our haverim, and whom do we generally pick? Well, people just like us, of course! Do we gravitate towards those who challenge us, our thinking, our theology, our politics? Or do we busily, with that “like” thumbs up, “friend” those who confirm our leanings, reinforce our prejudices, and pile on in our rantings while “unfriending” those that actually think differently? I suppose that’s only natural. We all do it.

This is what we do in our offices, in our politics (what a lovely party system we have developed!), and in our churches. Charismatics cluster with Charismatics, Pentecostals with Pentecostals, Reformed people with other Reformed people, unreformed people with other unreformed people, singles with singles, youth with youth, Jews with Jews, Gentiles with Gentiles, etc etc etc. The problem is when we selectively choose the members of our own havering body, we always end up with Frankenstein (or his wonderful bride). Because left to ourselves we will always choose toadies. “Yes, tell me again how perceptive I am…tell me how wrong they are…isn’t this a wonderful little club we share..” Knave. Stayne.

Havers challenge us, annoy us, bug us, make us think, make us better. They drag us out of bed when we’d rather hit the snooze just one more time. They pull off our facades even as they call forth our muchiness. And we cannot pick these people. They find us. He brings them to us, constantly. You know who they are – they’re the ones you wish would leave.

havering through 1189

Okay, so I just got tired of waiting.

This is now the home of the blog formerly known as “Project 1189” – at least until the technical difficulties are straightened out at the WordPress site on our server. I had just gotten into Joshua when the site hiccupped and left me feeling like John the Baptist’s dad – but only mute for 6 weeks or so rather than 9 months. I actually stopped the reading and writing at that point, waiting for the site to come back. One day hopefully they’ll sort it out, but in the meantime, I’ll haver here.

As you can see from the blog header, haver has at least two layers of meaning depending on whether we’re talking about English or Hebrew – but both meanings are, I think, curiously related. The best theologian on his best day is still only hemming and hawing when compared with the vastness of God. At best, we fingerpaint when we delve into the things of God. It’s when we become impressed with our own supposed profundity that we become the most dangerous and doltish. But when we see ourselves invited to fingerpaint, to get our hands covered and messy with the things of God, we can end up creating some striking – not to mention fun – portraits.

Who would have thought that theology could be fun. If only there weren’t so many of us who in doing it end up sucking the life out of others and ourselves.

So let’s hem and haw, babble and maunder (now there’s another good word!). Friends can do that with friends; God invites us to haver with him. It was reading Ann Spangler in her book, Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, discuss the Jewish word haver (plural haverim) as the word for “friends” or fellow students in a Jewish school (a Yeshiva). She says a haver in ordinary usage can simply mean a companion or a close friend, but in the context of seminary or school life, it is “someone who is willing to partner with you in grappling with Scripture and with the rabbinic texts.” She contrasts university libraries (or any libraries) in America with a Yeshiva library filled with havers. Our libraries are, of course, quiet. Students sit in separate cubicles or study silently at shared tables. In a Yeshiva, you are met with loud voices and gesticulations (I had to use that word!) as haverim argue and debate and, well, haver. I don’t think we know how to haver like that, at least not without our havering becoming hateful. I would suggest that to a large degree that’s because we forget we are all in the final analysis hemming and hawing and maundering with each other. It’s what Job realized about all his words when he finally encountered God – and God said he had spoken well. It was his pompous friends with all the sure answers that received the divine frowns. And then Job maundered some prayers for them.

So it is in this spirit that I once again deign to finger paint in a blog. Don’t ask me for a schedule for Project 1189 – I’m just going to move on through the Bible, picking back up in Joshua, at a leisurely pace. Hemming and hawing as opposed to a beeline. The goal isn’t the Bible in one year or two or three, but simply to read, to think, to write – to haver, to fingerpaint – however long it takes. And they’ll be other things I’ll haver about here as well. The occasional book review or excerpts, random observations and thoughts from whatever I happen to be reading, listening to, or watching.

And if I haver, yeah I know I’m gonna be / I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you…