A Little Leaven

Another item for my to-do list: teach the youngsters historical criticism

2013-04-29T21:54:00.001-07:00

Mike Bird says pastors like me need to teach our young people historical criticism. Mike is a New Testament scholar and he's not alone. The brilliant preacher Barbara Brown Taylor has made the same point.

Historical Criticism is the science of reading texts in light of their historic, cultural context. Take the statement "I'll knock you up in the morning." Is it offensive or risque? Actually it depends on where the sentence was uttered. In the UK it simply means to "wake you up." In the U.S. the statement implies more than a rap on the door and a cheery "good morning."

To read the bible historically means that we can't take sentences from the Bible and pretend that they are truths independent of time and place. So, for instance, when Jesus says that he is the son of man, we might take it at face value and say, "Jesus is affirming his full humanity, the fact that he is human just like us." But taken historically we would see that when Jesus uttered the phrase "Son of Man" he was referring to a figure in the book of Daniel, a figure who is no mere mortal but an exalted figure divine or almost divine. I mention this because sometime historical criticism is perceived to take away the divine in the Bible and substitute naturalistic historic anti-supernatural readings for true Christianity. That is not so. There's more to historical criticism, there are many branches and if you take it up at even an amateur level you get to learn some really cool German words.

I have no problem with historical criticism but I do have a problem teaching it. I've tried often and never been successful. Occasionally I've had adult classes become enthusiastic about particular instances of historical criticism but most young people seem not to have a context that allows for appreciation. How different from my day! When I was a youth we hungered for historical criticism! NOT.

Bonhoeffer's Christianity: An Illuminating Interpretation

2013-04-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazi's, he wrote many letters that were later published as Letters and Papers from Prison. In some of these letters he advanced an idea that he called "religionless Christianity."

The idea has taken on several lives of its own, thanks in part to the fact that Bonhoeffer isn't clear as to what he means by the term and he was executed before the end of World War 2. Some have taken his thought in the direction of Christian atheism, others have believed that he was looking ahead to a time like our own when religious institutions would diminish and Christians would have to do without institutional church structures to remain followers of Christ.

In The Politics of Redemption, Adam Kotsko advances an intriguing thesis regarding what Bonhoeffer means. Kotsko writes that Bonhoeffer's definition of religion is "idiosyncratic and narrow" and in a counter-intuitive sense for most of us. On the basis of the rest of his prison writings, Kotsko makes the claim that Bonhoeffer uses the term "religion" to refer to individualism and metaphysics.

In terms of individualistic accounts of salvation Bonhoeffer writes: "Hasn't the individualistic question about personal salvation almost completely left us all?" Obviously Bonhoeffer doesn't traffic in the same circles I do (I know plenty of people who think individualistically about salvation) but I resonate with his point. The idea of salvation as a transaction between an individual and God (who is also an individual) is an idea that I find difficult to hold onto in light of the story of Jesus and the church. Salvation brings us into new relationships with God and with others.

As to metaphysics, Bonhoeffer goes on to write about "the world beyond." Bonhoeffer wants a world focused faith: "What is above this world is, in the gospel, intended to exist for this world. I mean that, not in the anthropocentric sense of liberal, mystic, pietistic ethical theology, but in the biblical sense of the creation and of the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ."

So in Bonhoeffer's religion, individuals are saved from the world in favor of the beyond. As Kostko puts it: "it seems fair to characterize [religion] as essentially the drama of the soul with its God, a drama for which everything else falls into indifference."

Kotsko goes on to show how this explains Bonhoeffer's critiques of both Bultmann and Barth. Bultmann is too concerned with the individual soul of the believer. Barth is too caught up in God as an individual. But that is for another post (God willing).

If Kotsko is right then the last thing that Bonhoeffer sees is Christianity becoming individuals practicing their faith apart from a community. Instead, Bonhoeffer is calling for people to practice faith in community (which is different from individuals attending a church service). And Bonhoeffer's practice is concerned with people in this world and the world itself. Oddly enough, Bonhoeffer's "religionless" has much in common with "religion" according to the book of James: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Discipleship, Love & Joy: A sermon on John 21:1-19

2013-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

It was after breakfast and the two men were sitting by the fire. Something about a fire that allows you to linger but have something else to look at besides your companions. It had been a quiet breakfast. None of the disciples had wanted to ask Jesus who he was because they knew who he was and yet, this resurrection was throwing everything off. Peter must have wanted to ask Jesus a question about his own status. He had denied him, he'd given up his faith that Jesus was the messiah after Jesus' arrest.

How is it that Peter, known for his outspoken, insert foot in mouth comments can't find anything to say at this moment? Jesus speaks first. Jesus asks to Peter: Peter, do you love me? Now Jesus will ask this question 3 times which is a striking parallel to the 3 times that Peter was asked if he was a disciple of Jesus in the courtyard. And notice please that in both of these scenes there is a fire. The parallels invite us to compare the two scenes. In one Peter says no three times and in the other Peter says yes three times.

Now many scholars believe that this is Jesus' way of restoring Peter. Peter is able to overcome each denial with an affirmation. Jesus gives him the chance to negate his negations. Each of his denying No's is erased by his affirming yes to Jesus.

But notice the form of the questions. In the garden Peter is asked; Are you his disciple? But after breakfast Peter isn't asked: "Are you my disciple" Or even "Are you ready to be my disciple, ready to try following me again?" That's not the question. What is the question? The question is, "do you love me."

Craig Barnes, president of Princeton Seminary, says that actually, when Peter was back in the courtyard where he denies being a disciple of Jesus, he is telling the truth. Peter realizes he isn't a disciple of Jesus. He can't be a disciple.

Here's what Barnes says: If to be a disciple means to follow and following Jesus according to Jesus means following him to the cross and Peter made it clear that he would do anything he could to prevent Jesus from going to the cross then the reality is that Peter is not a disciple. maybe by the first campfire Peter was really telling the truth. " I wish I were but not really, I'm not a disciple. I can't follow him to the cross."

But as important as that question is, as important as discipleship is, that's not the question this morning. The question this morning is what? "Do you love me?"

As important as discipleship is, love is enough. "Do you love me?" asks Jesus. And it's a question you can't settle with an answer once and for all. Again and again the question comes to us. Again and again Jesus asks the question: "do you love me?"

But what sort of love are we talking about here? There are many words for love in Greek and in this passage there are two different words for love being used.

Jesus first says: Simon, do you agapas me" Agape is the form of love ascribed to God and Jesus by John. But when Peter answers he doesn't say: "Yes lord, I agapo you." No, instead he says: "Yes, Lord, you know that I philo you." That is to say, yes Lord, you know that I have brotherly love for you. Phileo means brotherly love.

Now before I go on, I need to say that there are many scholars who don't believe we should make a distinction here between agape and phileo because the two words can be used as synonyms. Actually the argument is more complicated than that but I think John wants us to see the distinction here because of the way he sets up this dialog. So follow me here.

A second time Jesus again asks: "do you agapas me." And Peter again answers, "Yes Lord, you know that I philoyou."

Finally, the third time, Jesus asks the question using Peter's word:" Peter, do you phileis me?" And Peter again answers," Lord you know everything, you know that I philo you."

Now I always hoped that the questioning would end differently. I always hoped that Peter would consider Jesus once, twice, three times and by the third time Peter would say, "yes, Lord, I do agapo you! Yes, Lord, I love you with the highest form of love." That would be like Jesus being a great coach who knows how to move his player from good to great, from Philo to Agapo, from brotherly love to divine, selfless love. Wouldn't it be great to see Peter's spirit soar as he grows in love loyalty and devotion?

But instead of Peter rising up to meet Jesus, Jesus descends to attend to Peter.

And you know what? What Jesus does here is what God has been doing since the beginning. God descends. God descends. When we stumble God stoops to our level. When we are weak God comes down to us. When we can't meet the divine standard God lowers the bar as it were. You see what Jesus does here? Peter can't make it to Agapo. So Jesus says: do you philo? And Peter can truthfully answer the question about Jesus.

Peter may not be a true disciple, there are still days and times when he doesn't follow. And Peter may not be a perfect lover, his loyalty to Jesus may not merit Agapostatus. But his Philo, his all too human love, is enough. It's enough for Jesus to get started working on Peter. It's enough for Peter to begin his work of feeding and caring for Jesus and Jesus people.

And what a relief this passage ! We can stop pretending that we have all the answers, we can stop pretending that our faith never wavers, we can stop pretending that we never make mistakes we can stop pretending that our love for Jesus is all razzle-dazzle. We don't have to act like we've arrived. All we need to do is look at Jesus, admire him and let him go to work.

If love is enough for Peter, it's enough for us as well. It's enough to get us started towards being disciples that follow Jesus, it's enough to keep us close to Jesus so we can grow into deeper, agapo love.

It's enough to get us on the path that will eventually lead us not to where we wanted to go but to the places that God wants to take us so that we become the people that God wants us to be. That's good news.

The good news of the resurrection is that even now that Jesus is raised and exalted on high, he hasn't forgotten how to come down to our level and love us with God's love. The good news of the resurrection is that God is still at work in our lives and Jesus loves and forgives us. The good news of the resurrection is that God has become one of us so that we may, after a long road to glory become one with God. And in the mean time, as we await that becoming, Jesus stands in our place with the way of life and the love that God intends for us to live.

Discipleship is difficult, agape love near impossible, but Jesus says that human love is enough. It's not the highest form of love or the best possible way but that's ok because beyond our love and beyond ourselves is the one that God raised from the dead: Jesus Christ. The love of God is evident in Jesus, his life, his death and his refusal to give up on us. Love is enough because the God of love is enough.

Remarks on the early publishing industry

2013-04-13T12:00:00.001-07:00

Before the printing press and copy machine everything was copied by hand. In the middle ages, this work was done by monks, sitting in silence in rooms with clear glass windows known as scriptoriums. In his delightful book, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt includes this humorous but true anecdote on how business was conducted there:

"The monastery was a place of rules, but in the scriptorium there were rules within rules....Absolute silence reigned....An elaborate gestural language was invented in order to facilitate such requests as were permitted. If a scribe wanted to consult a psalter, he made the general sign for a book--extending his hands and running over imaginary pages--and then, by putting his hands on his head in the shape of a crown, the specific sign for the psalms of King David. If we was asking for a pagan book, he began, after making the general signs [for book], to scratch behind his ear, like a dog scratching his fleas. And if he wished to have what the Church regarded as a particularly offensive or dangerous pagan book, he could put two fingers into his mouth, as if he were gagging."

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Norton, 2011. pp.43-44

Now You See Him, Now You Don't

2013-04-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of Easter day, we are still considering the earth shattering implications of Jesus' resurrection during this season known as "Eastertide." A question to ponder: Why does Jesus appear after the resurrection, but only briefly? Consider one brief appearance of Jesus recorded by Luke: two disciples are walking back from Jerusalem on Easter with heavy hearts. They know that Jesus was crucified and has died. They had hoped, before those tragic events, that Jesus was the one who would liberate Israel from an oppressive empire. And now they are walking along a road, heading home discouraged, unaware of the resurrection. A stranger joins them and they explain their sorrow. The stranger in turn starts telling them how even the bad things that have happened were part of the plan for their liberation. When the disciples reach their hometown they invite the stranger in to eat. As they sit down to dinner the stranger takes the bread, blesses it and breaks it. At that moment the disciples' eyes are opened! It is Jesus. But notice what happens next in Luke 24:31: The very moment that Jesus is recognized he vanishes! Jesus shows up just long enough to send these two disciples who have thrown in the towel back to the disciples in Jerusalem. Jesus shows up to bring us together. Rather than sticking around as a distraction he vanishes so that we are thrust back into his community, thrust back among the imperfect people that he is at work among and through. I am reminded that God sent Jesus because he loves the world and God calls you and me for the same reason: love for the world, a love that flows through us and beyond us. Jesus vanishes, the world remains. Let us engage the world with love.

Easter poetry by Gerardo Oberman

2013-04-03T13:25:00.001-07:00

“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden…” (John 19; 41)

This is not a casual remark from John.

in the place where they snatch the life from Jesus,

in all cruelty and pain, there – there was a garden.

Where torture and hatred try to bring to silence

Him who was opening up the way to the new, to light,

just there, there was a garden.

Where the religious and political power came together

to put a stop to the man from Nazareth

who scandalized their fake morality and the corruption

of their ways, in that same place there were flowers

and the fresh smell of spring.

Where there was the absence of friends and disciples,

where there was announcement of cowardice and betrayal,

where there was denial and fear

in that same place birds sang their daily praise to creation.

Where oppressors smiled and greeted the guardians of death,

the breeze danced among the tress and their dance brought with it

a fresh perfume of life.

Where two men in solidarity took into their arms an innocent body

to place it in a tomb, there, there was a garden.

A garden would soon become the sacred place

of the most marvellous subversion of all times: the resurrection.

…

Torture, innocent deaths, intrigues of power, oppression, darkness,

they continue to be part of human history, they are present still today.

But, let us not forget, let us open up our eyes, because there, precisely there,

God may have put a garden.

Gerardo Oberman/Argentina

Tr. Roberto Jordan

Gerardo Oberman is the President of Reformed Churches of Argentina

Poetry for Easter: John Updike

2013-03-31T22:37:00.000-07:00

Seven Stanzas At Easter

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

A Good Friday Poem from Luci Shaw

2013-03-29T21:56:00.002-07:00

Judas, Peter

By Luci Shaw

Luci Shaw

because we are all

betrayers, taking

silver and eating

body and blood and asking

(guilty) is it I and hearing

him say yes

it would be simple for us all

to rush out

and hang ourselves

but if we find grace

to cry and wait

after the voice of morning

has crowed in our ears

clearly enough

to break our hearts

he will be there

to ask us each again

do you love me?

We read this poem at our Thursday night Tenebrae service near the beginning and then closed after hearing of the tomb with these words: "Tonight we end in the tomb and we stay there until we resume our common worship on the third day, Sunday. 'he will be there to ask us each again do you love me?" Powerful.

A Palm Sunday Prayer

2013-03-24T12:06:00.001-07:00

The politics of palm sunday

by Steve Taylor

Palm Sunday and
Jesus enters the city
A hot bed of religious fervour and zealous passion
Some wanted him dead
Some wanted him to take up arms against the oppressor
Some simply wanted a son
alive
once the shouting was over
Jesus what if you were mis-
under-
misquoted, stood?
shot with words
manipu
lated,
riddled with emotion
domesticated,
to a dominant agenda
Jesus give me the courage to keep saying yes
to your call
and your Kingdom
no matter how many people shout
wave, holler

Uncommon King: A Palm Sunday Sermon

2013-03-24T12:02:00.001-07:00

Big Elk Lake, Siskyou County, California

Palm Sunday reminds me of my first backpacking trip. I was 10 years old. And the first day we left the car to hike 9 miles to a mountain lake. I'm not sure if I'd ever walked 9 miles before and I certainly hadn't walked that far with a 20 pound pack on my back. We had walked a long way and passed a trail crossing where a sign indicated we had just 1 more mile to go to that lake. We walked down that trail for what seemed like almost a mile and then we could see, a hundred yards ahead, where the trail came out of the forest onto a bench of land and my mother said, "I'll bet that's where the lake is." So with new-found energy in my step I quickened my pace up to the crest where I saw a meadow but no lake. After crossing the meadow we were in the trees again until the trail led up into another sunny clearing, "That's where the lake is" said my dad and again I hurried ahead only to discover that the lake wasn't in that clearing either. Suddenly my body was tired, the disappointment of twice dashed hopes did in my legs and I sat down on a decaying log and threw off my backpack. It took a lot of coaxing and cajoling by my parents and copious handfuls of M&Ms before I agreed to go on. That last mile was the longest mile and there were a few more false hopes before we finally found the lake. Palm Sunday is like one of those clearings that brought joy to the people before they realized there were more hills to climb.

When Jesus left Jericho for the last time in his life, it was all uphill. It was a steep climb from Jericho to Jerusalem, his final destination. Fifteen miles, mostly hot, dry and dusty even in springtime, uphill. He wasn't alone on the journey. His disciples were with him and there were also throngs of people making the journey to Jerusalem where Passover celebrations were beginning. The dry and dusty trail begins to change after 12 miles or so, there the barren dusty desert is finally replaced by lush green trees. Jesus paused in the shade to rest, bending over, hands on his knees, catching his breath in the delicious shade. Disciples surrounded him, a few sitting down with their backs to the scrawny tree trunks. After a minute, Jesus looks at two of them and says "you guys go on into that village over there. You won't have to go far before you see a young donkey tied to a tree. Untie it and bring it back. If anyone challenges you just say "the master needs it " and they won't bother you.

So the two disciples got up and walked over to the village where they found a donkey just like Jesus had said. They untied it and began leading it back to Jesus. A man leaned out of a doorway: "What do you think you are doing?" he asked. "The master needs it." Replied one of the disciples. The man nodded, the disciples kept walking.

As they approached Jesus the other disciples got back on their feet. Some took off their tunics and threw them on the donkey. Jesus walked up to the donkey and James and John helped him mount. Then they continued on to the top of the mountain and then down the narrow canyon that separates the mount of olives from the city of Jerusalem. The sight of the city and the presence of Jesus mounted on a donkey brought elation to the swelling crowd. Peace and blessing and glory on high shouted one man. A woman cried out "welcome to the king in the name of the Lord!" Her words fit the moment and caught on. Soon others were shouting "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!" and then it became a chant in unison: Blessed is the king....who comes...in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory on high! Blessed is the king...who comes...in the name of the Lord." People looking at Jesus, filled with gratitude, singing, chanting. waving branches. People untying their jackets from around their waists and spreading them on the ground.

What began as a simple pilgrimage has become a spectacle.

There is Jesus, mounted on the donkey, there is the large crowd, cheering, praising, giving him a royal welcome, waving branches, using their coats as impromptu pavement. He's a VIP after all; the king. This is a royal welcome, the sort of welcome given to a victorious king entering the city his army has just defeated.

Yet the branches and the cloaks combined with the donkey, mingle together to signal something strange: they signal that Jesus, if he is a king, is an Uncommon King. The king should ride into the city on a horse, not a donkey. But not Jesus. No warhorse for him. There he is, yep, riding on a donkey. Furthermore, he approaches the stronghold of his enemies unarmed and he hasn't sent his army ahead to win the battle. And arriving in Jerusalem he doesn't march on the palace. Instead he heads toward the temple, a place he purifies for prayer. He is an uncommon king become he comes to the occupied city in peace, He is an uncommon king because he comes in weakness, He is an uncommon king because he comes to surrender his life, to lay it down. He is an uncommon king because he doesn't demand his subjects protect him. He is an uncommon king because he walks into a hornet's nest knowing better than those who are celebrating that he will be stung.

Nevertheless, even knowing what he knows, Jesus rides on, right into the place that demand death. Jesus does this because he has an uncommon goal. Earlier in his gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus is resolute in heading for Jerusalem. But the first stop on his journey, way back in Galilee, is a high mountain far away from Jerusalem, a place of refuge where he meets with Moses and Elijah at an event called the transfiguration. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah have a discussion with Jesus and the topic is the Exodus of Jesus. The word exodus is a loaded term in this context. Centuries before God had led Israel out of Egypt in a dramatic event known as the exodus. Israelites, in slavery under the fists of their enemies were led across the Red Sea and into freedom. Jesus is preparing for another Exodus, another great moment when God leads people from bondage to freedom. Now Jesus is a leader superior to Moses. And yet his role in this Exodus will be different than Moses' role in the Exodus from Egypt. Rather than the man who raises his staff so that the red sea divides and the people can travel along the sea floor to freedom on the other side, Jesus is more like the Passover lamb that is killed in order to protect the Israelites from the death that comes in darkest night. And so it's no accident that Jesus enters Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, he comes as an uncommon king with an uncommon goal: to die. He comes to embody everything he had been talking about and teaching: he comes to serve, he comes to turn the other cheek, he comes to take up his cross, he comes to forgive, he comes to trust in God when God is all that is left for him to trust. On palm Sunday we celebrate an uncommon king with an uncommon goal: to renounce a royal life and die a shameful death so that humanity might have a new way to live.

What exactly is this way of life that Christ gives? It is the life we see given on good Friday and resurrected by God on Easter Sunday. It is a life given to defeat sin and death, a life that offers forgiveness and a fresh start. And this is a form of life still on offer today, a way of life that Jesus invites us to take up. This is a form of life that has stood the test of time, a life well lived by people in many times and places: by Francis of Assisi in the 12th century and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 20th. by Julian of Norwich in England and Mother Theresa in India. It is a life that cannot be reduced to a moment. And it is a life that has its Palm Sundays as well as Ash Wednesdays, its Easters as well as good Fridays. You see, Jesus is an uncommon king who offers an uncommon invitation, an invitation to a life that leads us into the mystery of God's love and grace.

You may not know this unless you read the trade publications of pastors (and who among us reads those?) but Palm Sunday has gotten a bad rap lately. It seems too joyful and triumphant when in reality Palm Sunday is a flash in the pan, an event whose joy soon evaporates. So instead of celebrating Palm Sunday many churches now celebrate Passion Sunday as well or instead of Palm Sunday. Passion Sunday is when the story of the betrayal, arrest and crucifixion of Jesus is read. It's what we will do this Thursday night. Passion Sunday reminds us that who chanted "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord on Palm Sunday were shouting "crucify him" crucify him, on Friday. The hosannas and blessings of Palm Sunday ring hollow in retrospect, replaced as they are by the curses of Friday. At least that is how the trade publications would have us preach and lead worship. Palm Sunday reminds me of my first backpacking trip and that clearing up ahead in the forest where I thought there was a lake but soon discovered just another meadow. Oh I was elated. Oh there was a spring in my step and the joy of anticipation in my heart. But soon I had thrown off my pack and sat deep in disappointment on a log. Looking back at Palm Sunday we see that disappointment is around the corner. So why do we celebrate Palm Sunday?

Here's why: Jesus. Jesus knows what is in store, he knows the crowd will be turned against him, for that matter he knows Judas will betray him, Peter deny him, the rest desert him. But for all of that he refuses to silence the crowd. He refuses to silence us in our premature praise. Instead he embraces the crowd just as he will share a meal with the deserting disciples and remain faithful to denying Peter. Jesus knows that sometimes we rightfully praise God even though we don't realize that our story and God's story, our story with God has turns ahead that will turn our thanks to grumbling , our praise to jeers, our joy to fear, our love to betrayal and our faith to denial. Jesus knows this. Jesus knows that we will fall away, that our faith will give way to doubt, our holiness this moment to sin. Nevertheless, Jesus welcomes our praise on this day even as he welcomed the praise of a crowd that would soon cry out for his condemnation. He does this because he understands our weakness and loves us in spite of it. Yes, that's it. That's what this Palm Sunday story is about. This is a story about the uncommon love of an uncommon king. This is the story of the uncommon love of Jesus. The uncommon love of Jesus for people who couldn't see that victory lay in laying down his life. The uncommon love of Jesus for people who want to put down their cross and mope on a decaying log before the journey is over. The uncommon love of Jesus for people like Peter and people like you and me who deny him.

Why celebrate Palm Sunday? Because we celebrate Jesus. So come what tomorrow may hold for us, today let us praise God and give thanks for Jesus our uncommon king with an uncommon objective brought about by uncommon love. "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"

The Cross: Does God do more than Suffer?

2013-03-21T23:02:00.001-07:00

"In the cross of Christ we have humanity's final rejection of God, and in that cross we have God's final rejection of humanity's sin."

-Thomas F. Torrance

On Wednesday night our Animate study group discussed and debated Nadia Bolz-Weber's explanation of the cross. I think Bolz-Weber would agree with the above quote from Torrance. The quote presents a fairly passive view of God in terms of the cross and that's what Bolz-Weber gives us. By this I mean that the cross for Bolz-Weber is not simply the passion of Jesus Christ. The cross is also the passion (and "passion" here means the opposite of "action") of God. God suffers our rejection. And, while God rejects (an active verb, true) our sin, it is the final rejection, a rejection that has been going on all along. That is to say, even when we stoop to murdering God, God rejects our sin, refuses to hold it against us, instead continues to forgive us. The cross, then, reveals the character of God. We can throw our absolute worst at God but God cannot be other than forgiving.

Thomas F. Torrance

Torrance, however, goes beyond a simply passive view of the cross. Following his quote above he continues: "But in the cross we have behind it all the holy will of God to take upon himself human sin in rejecting God and to take upon himself his own rejection of humanity, so that he makes the cross the most positive act of divine love."

God is active and at work even at the cross. "Behind it all the holy will of God" is at work. God in Christ not only takes upon Godself human sin but also takes up God's own rejection of humanity." That is to say, the cross is more than a revelation of who God always is. For Torrance, the cross is where God acts. God does something: God in Christ takes human sin and divine rejection of humanity and cancels them. A change takes place, human sin which was not forgiven is forgiven. Divine rejection which was an obstacle to fellowship with God is overcome by Godself.

What do you think? Is Torrance's rhetoric persuasive? Was God active in the crucifixion? Or does Bolz-Weber give us a more compelling understanding of God and the cross, a God who doesn't traffic or participate actively in human violence?

The Context

2013-03-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Over at Euangelion, Mike Bird gives us a quote about the narrative feature of scripture.

Here is a shorter quote from his longer quote:
"All human communities lives out some story that provides a context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is shaping our culture, and will thus cease to shape our lives as it should."

Salvation: Who's In and Who's Out?

2013-03-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

Last night at our Lenten Animate Study we were discussing the large topic of salvation. We never quite nailed down a definition (I plan a forthcoming post on the subject) but we did grapple some with the question of who is saved and who isn't.

At the time, riffing off a previous comment I tried to speak about "centered sets" vs. "bounded sets" which got us onto the topic of Venn diagrams which is a whole other way of looking at the matter. So let me try a different approach:

I once heard a Greek Orthodox priest explain what was meant by the phrase "salvation is found in the church." When we say that salvation is found in the church (or in Christ, or in Christ's body) what we are saying is that we know we can be saved in the church (or in Christ etc). What we aren't saying is that those outside of the church (or Christ) are not saved. Indeed, we may hope that all are saved even if we aren't sure. The Bible in places seems to indicate that all are saved, in other places a more exclusive view is purveyed. We may even believe that some paths to God show more promise than others (if I had to, I'd put more money on Buddhism than on, say, German National Socialism in the 1930s). The Holy Spirit is at work in the world. God is at work in the world. We need to be careful in how we try to limit God.

At the same time, if Jesus is the revelation of God then we can be certain that certain ways of going about living life are better than others, serving others rather than enslaving them is an example that comes to mind.

Who serves Whom?

2013-03-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

Within Luke's gospel there are two stories of a master and servants interacting around a meal. The first keeps the roles intact, the servants serve and the master is served:

"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat?'

Wouldn't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink and then you can have your meal'?

Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are only unworthy servants, we have simply done our duty.'"
(Luke 17:7-10)

Seems reasonable, right? But consider the odd case of the master back from a wedding banquet who stumbles in the door and reverses the master-servant relation:

"Be dressed and ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he [the master] will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. (Luke 12:35-37).

If one thing unites these two scenarios it is that in both scenarios the listener/reader is the one who is served, as the master in the Luke 17 parable and surprisingly as the servant in the Luke 12 parable. I hope for the second scenario but will try to remember the etiquette of the first!

Take this Bread: a sermon on Isaiah 55

2013-03-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

My sermon from March 3rd. You can listen to it here under the title "Abundant Life Again".

Early one winter morning forty six year old Sara Miles walked into church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. While that seems unexceptional, this woman had, until that very moment, led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by it. It was her first time taking communion. It changed everything.

"Eating Jesus," as she called it, led Sara against all expectations to a faith she'd scorned and to work she'd never imagined. Communion turned out to be not simply a symbolic wafer and swig of juice but actual food and drink.

The bread and cup created a desire that didn't make sense to her. Communion made no sense. Her mind told her she was eating bread but her heart desired what she ate and her heart knew that Jesus was real and in her mouth. Jesus lodged in her like a crumb.

So Sara Miles passed the bread to others and kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what she'd experienced. Communion knocked her upside down, forced her to deal with what she calls the impossible reality of God. She came to learn that "there's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle."

There's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle.
But sometimes we miss the meal, perhaps we aren't hungry or we don't trust the invitation to be true.

Imagine walking through a crowded street market in the morning. You have been there before, you know many of the vendors. You have money in your purse or your pocket. Enough money to buy the shiny trinkets you've seen and been saving up for during the past several weeks.

Suddenly ahead and to your left a merchant raises his arm and calls out: "Yo, thirsty people. Get your water right here. You say you're broke, not a penny to your name, come on over, you don't need money to buy this food, come on over and have a meal. Hot from the oven bread. cold Milk. aged wine. No money? No problem!"

Who is this person? And why is just about everybody walking right past. Fresh bread. Milk. wine. It's good stuff and it's free.

But here's the thing: money is not the issue. Like you everybody in the market has money burning a hole in their pockets and they , or better, since this is a parable, and we, we came to this market for something else.
So the merchant cries out: "Why are you spending your money on what isn't food? Why do you work for a living then spend that living on things that do not satisfy?"

The question is, do you take what is free and nourishing or hurry off to barter for what is cheap and fun, at least in the moment?

That merchant in the market calling out to us is Isaiah's memorable image from our reading today. "Hey, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, you who have no money, come over, buy and eat!" says God.
It's free, it's a gift. Come be fed for every feeding is a miracle and this one is a free miracle.

But we instinctively resist. At some level we all have embraced the TANSTAAFL principle: TANSTAAFL is an acronym that stands for: There isn't no such thing as a free lunch. There may be a catch. people don't give things away for free. They always want something in return. What does that merchant want? Or better, what does God want?

And that's a fair question because from one angle it's true that you can't walk away from God the same as you walk toward God. God is in the business of changing lives, God is the great transformer who begins in small ways and ordinary actions but the end result is change. God desires that you and I become the people we were meant to be, people with a purpose. And the reason that God wants to feed us is so that we can be a splendid witness and blessing to the world. King David was a blessing to Israel and a witness to the nations of God's power because of God's promise to him. And Isaiah says to us, that promise I made to King David, I now make to you as well. As God's people, you are invited to a banquet and given the privilege of inviting others.

This message begins with Isaiah but doesn't end with him. The message pulses through the blood of history and takes on new flesh in the life of Jesus. Jesus was familiar with Isaiah's writings and in fact, Jesus understood himself, Jesus understood his ministry and Jesus understood his followers in terms of Isaiah's radical message of God's love and grace.

And like Isaiah, Jesus told a story:
There was a man who prepared a great banquet and invited many guests. When the preparations were complete he sent his servants out to tell those who had been invited that it was time to show up.

However, they all began to make excuses. One said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I made an offer on a field, I didn't think the owner would accept it but he has and now I have to go down to the title office and sign the papers."

Another said, "I saw an ad on Craigslist last week for five yoke of oxen. I called, didn't hear anything but the guy just called and I need to go test drive them. Don't want to lose this opportunity."

A third guy said," Darn it, I just got married. Maybe next year."

So it went with invited guest after invited guest.

When the servants came back with the disappointing news, the host changed his plans. "Quick," he said to his servants, "go out into the streets and the alleys and bring in the poor, the lame, the crippled, and if there is still room go out into the countryside and tell everyone who will to come to the banquet.."

God offers food and wine and says "come." The guest list is large, the only ones who are excluded are those who exclude themselves, who won't come and eat because they have other business.

Jesus himself never seemed to turn down an invitation to a meal: whether it was at the home of an enemy Pharisee or the home of a tax collector which meant scandal, Jesus never RSVP's with a regret.

In fact, one of the most controversial things that Jesus did was eat with people who were not good company. That's why his enemies paid for advertisements that said: Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners! And that was not false advertising! Jesus ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans and other sordid sorts of people. These were people who didn't have any religious capital, the sort of people who in spiritual terms were not just broke but up to their ears in debt.

But according to Isaiah and according to Jesus, God doesn't turn people away because they are in debt or can't pay the check. And that's why Jesus sought out, welcomed, and dined with unprepared, unreformed, unwashed sinners. His action was a prophetic sign suiting his radical message: here comes God now, ready or not! God is in the market hawking groceries. God has invited us to the banquet which begins right now.
But Jesus also does something else. Rather than making us simply guests at the banquet or customers in the market, Jesus offers us meaningful work, he invites us to help distribute in the market and help serve at the banquet. Isaiah hinted at this with his talk about expanding the promise made to King David long ago to include the entire nation of Israel. Everybody will be blessed by God's love, everybody will be a splendid witness of what God has done.

Jesus gets more specific, he asks us to witness to that banquet as well. Like one hungry beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. Like one rat telling another rat where to find the cheese. And, since there's a hunger beyond hunger that's expressed in food, our witness is to a banquet that also means forgiveness, acceptance, empowerment and love. This is a message that is best carried by people who are hungry. Like Peter, who, when the heat was on and Jesus was about to be crucified, denied knowing Jesus three times in order to save his own bacon. Later, when Jesus came back from the dead, Peter was hungry for reconciliation with Jesus. He needed to know if Jesus still loved him, if Jesus had forgiven him, if he still had a place with Jesus. And so Jesus asked Peter three times, "Peter, do you love me?"

And when Peter said yes each time Jesus gave him three words: "Feed my sheep." You may not be perfect, you may have disowned me, but I haven't disowned you, says Jesus. And now there is food to serve. So feed my people, feed the stranger, the sinner, your friend, your enemy. Feed my people.

Which brings us back to the story of Sara Miles, the thoroughly secular woman who one day decided to walk into a church out of nothing more than curiosity but found herself hungry and went forward for communion. She was hungry and communion helped her discover her hunger for Jesus and his work in the world. She took the bread. She ate. And she began to follow Jesus coming back each Sunday for more.

Her new life wasn't as simple as going to church on Sundays, sitting in the pews except when standing to sing a hymn. No, Sara Miles wanted to share that food with others so she started a food pantry. And it wasn't the church closet or basement sort of pantry. She wanted to connect passing out groceries with what happened for her each Sunday in communion. So she set up a food pantry in the sanctuary. But instead of bread and wine on the table it was free groceries available for any and all who desired, on the table and around it. And every Thursday the community was invited to partake in a banquet that Sara had been invited to and now wanted to invite others to as well.

This morning we are invited by Jesus to a meal. It's a meal for you, a meal for me, a meal for people like us but also for people who aren't like us. It's a meal for traitors, Jesus deniers, and every other type of sinner. The only qualification is you have to be hungry. We can come to this table with little thought of what we will do when we leave it because that is up to God. We don't have to say, "OK if I go to the table I'd better have an idea of how I will respond, what I will do for God." Come to the table. Let God take care of that, stay open for what God will do. Because we are invited to come to the table and be transformed in ways that we can't control or know in advance. We may not know any of that but rest assured, Jesus invites us to taste and to see. Jesus invites us to dine and discover enough grace for ourselves and for the whole world. Amen.

You can read more of Sara's powerful story in her wonderful book Take this Bread.

The Pastor and the Landlord

2013-03-08T10:31:00.002-08:00

A pastor walked into the small, battered sanctuary of his church one evening after a long day. In the morning he had made the rounds of area hospitals visiting church members who were ill, recovering from surgery or waiting for a procedure. His afternoon was taken up with work at the local food bank, stocking shelves, sitting down to listen to folks who were broke and broken. Breaking up a fight between two patrons and urging reconciliation. Another day done and the sermon had neither end nor beginning.
As his eyes adjusted to the light he noticed someone sitting in the far end of a pew on the right side of the church. As the pastor walked past he saw that the man, leaning forward with his hands folded on top of the backrest of the next pew up, was a familiar presence. He was the owner of most of the property in the neighborhood, a landlord known to tenants for his slow service, cheap repairs and regular rent increases.

The pastor settled into the front pew on the left side of the church. He bowed his head, resting it on the knuckles of his folded hands, elbows supported by tired knees. He began by praying for strength, wisdom and inspiration for the sermon that he must deliver in less than forty hours come Sunday morning. It was then that he realized that he hadn't offered thanks. Could he come up with ten things he was grateful for? "I thank you, God, for rescuing me. I thank you for your help in this day. I thank you for providing me with food and a place to live, for loving friends and freedom to worship.I thank you that I am not a thief, a liar, an adulterer. I thank you that I'm not caught up in my own self and possessions like that landlord."

The pastor moved his hands from under his chin and down to the edge of the pew. Hoisting his tired body, the pew creaking in sympathy, he rose, turned and walked down the aisle toward the door. As he passed the landlord he heard his plaintiff prayer: "Have mercy on me, God, for I am a sinner."

A reflection on Luke 18:9-14

Poetry for Lent: Taste & See

2013-03-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. What? You have no money? No worries; come, buy, and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money, without cost.
--Isaiah 55.1

O TASTE AND SEE

The world is
not with us enough.
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination's tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

--Denise Levertov

"The world is not with us enough." Like Isaiah, Levertov invites us to open our eyes, our mouths and our imagination to discover the life in all its incarnate variety. Come to the waters. Come buy and eat. It's free and its nourishing. Don't believe it? Taste and see!

Poetry for Lent: God's Grandeur

2013-02-24T14:27:00.003-08:00

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your
whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also
is full of darkness. --Jesus, Luke 11.34

God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And, for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastwards, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

It finally dawned on me after years of reading Jesus as saying what the monkey with his hands over his eyes symbolized: Jesus is not commanding "thou shalt see no evil." Jesus is not telling us to be careful what we look at lest we allow evil imagery to infect our imagination and intellect. That monkey with his eyes covered is effectively living in darkness. When we close our eyes because we fear the world will contaminate us we miss the light of what God is doing in the world. Open your eyes in faith and look for what God is doing around you. And though the last lights off the black West went/ Oh, morning at the brown brink eastwards, springs--Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Where have you seen God at work lately?

Poetry for Lent: R. S. Thomas

2013-02-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Coming

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

The Transfiguration: A glimpse of Glory and the Enduring Word

2013-02-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

One day Jesus took three of his disciples and hiked to the top of a tall mountain. At the top he prayed and participated in a divine transformation. His clothing and countenance turned white. How white? He was far whiter than if he'd been scrubbed and bleached with the best whitener on the market!

Not only had Jesus changed in appearance, he was also joined by two ancient celebrities: lawgiver Moses and Prophet Elijah. The three of them were discussing his upcoming "exodus" that would take place at Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the disciples--who had laid down for some shut-eye as they were tired-- the disciples rolled over onto their bellies to listen and watch as Jesus held forth with Moses and Elijah.

Peter, who was never at a loss for words, spoke without thinking: "Jesus, wouldn't it be neat if we pitched three tents up here: one for you and the others for Moses and Elijah!"

Peter got somebody's attention because suddenly thick clouds rolled over and engulfed the mountaineers and from the clouds came a voice: "This is my son, the chosen. Listen to him!"

This story is told in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Sufjan Stevens has a catchy musical version worth a listen. In many churches the story is read on the Sunday right before Lent. One year I titled my sermon "A Glimpse of Glory." It was a catchy title and I don't know where I got it. I thought it was original but an internet search indicated that I was in good company with that title. That was years ago, and my google search today indicates that "A glimpse of Glory continues to show up in church bulletins. Now, as I read through Luke I notice that the 'glimpse' that greeted the disciple's eyes was in the service of our ears.

Each gospel writer tells the Transfiguration story differently and Luke is the one gospel writer to go most explicitly in this direction.

Matthew and Mark begin the story with "Six days after these things." Luke however, narrows the focus and begins by writing "Eight days after saying these things." Commentators haven't come up with a good explanation for the difference in days (was it six or was it eight?) and as intriguing as it is to speculate, I can't think of anything brilliant to say about the six or eight days.

Instead, I call your attention to the way this story points back to the previous episode. By beginning with "after saying these things" and ending with "listen to him" Luke is calling us to look beyond the razzle-dazzle on the mountain top and think about what Jesus is saying to us here below.

What does he say?

"Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

The bleached bright appearance is a glimpse of glory. But the main thing is that we listen to Jesus, that we hear his invitation to join him in his mission to the world. That mission involves saying no to me and yes to Jesus and his words.

During Lent that is our task: to listen to Jesus, to take up our cross daily and follow. Let us live for others, love others and forgive others. Let us share our food and cultivate a life of prayer for the world. Let us get to know Jesus so that we can trust that his word is good news and the kingdom of love is already in our midst and about to blossom forth.

My Quest for Spirituality

2013-02-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

I've been on a quest for spirituality my whole life. Lately I've become more aware of the quest and I've found some wonderful spiritual teachers who have helped me to see that spirituality is not about achievement but also about self-awareness and awareness of God's grace given in my frailty. I want to share what I've learned from three spiritual practices: fasting, prayer and Bible reading.

Fasting

Perhaps the most paradoxical part of spirituality is the way spiritual practices humble us. So, for instance, when I fasted (not one of my current practices) I learned a great deal about how my appetites functioned and were even disordered. I would go without food and tell myself that whenever I felt hunger pains I would use that as a reminder to pray. Oddly enough, when I considered my fast in hindsight, I recognized how often I was hungry and didn't pray. I came to realize not so much that my fast made me more of a spiritual master but instead that fasting helped me understand that my own efforts are not as wonderful as I thought they would be, instead, God's grace and mercy is the key. Fasting, then, made me grateful. Not so much because of the actual practice but because I realized my own weakness.

As I write this post I realize that I could be taken as an ascetic or wanna-be ascetic: one who is trying to leap beyond materiality and my creaturely appetites into some sort of purely spiritual existence. The last paragraph in particular may have that feel, but that is not what I'm trying to communicate. I didn't fast because I thought food was a non-spiritual substance but because I wanted to understand food and my desires for it better and to develop a hunger and thirst for God along with it. Food is a spiritual substance, that is to say, I reject the compartmentalizing of matter and spirit. My desire for food is good and spiritual at heart but. But that's not all, it has also been deformed: witness the times I go to the refrigerator minutes after eating because I am stressed out. In those cases food becomes an idol. Instead of turning to God I turn to food. Fasting exposed this idolatry.

Prayer

Spiritual disciplines of prayer function in a similar way. When I decided to practice a formal morning prayer each morning I hoped to grow in the practice. At first I would forget many mornings, I was too hurried to remember. But even when my practice became more consistent I noticed that too often the whole exercise had become rote. That frustrated me until I read Theresa of Avila. She grudgingly wrote about her spiritual life because she was recognized as truly spiritual by her associates. Nevertheless, Theresa could laugh at the fact that often her prayer life was inconsistent and rote. Though dead for centuries, she counseled me not to take myself too seriously, as if my inattention created difficulties for God. Instead, I began to recognize how much God had done and is doing in my life in spite of my spotty attendance and attention to spiritual practices.

Again, I began to recognize how much God has done and is doing in my life in spite of my spotty attendance and attention to spiritual practices.

The best way for me to understand the boldfaced truth is to undertake one or more spiritual practices. Paradoxical as it may seem, there is something about striving to achieve that helps me understand that my achievements count for nothing and that God's grace is my only hope. Of course there is also the truth that by grace I make progress spiritually, a vulnerable progress to be sure, but progress indeed. But I'm coming to see that my own progress is only because of God's grace.

Bible Reading

As a pastor I often wonder if my pastoral work will amount to anything. Will my sermons make a difference? Will the church implode around me thanks to my imprudent decisions and lack of proper vision? Can I do anything about declining membership and attendance in a congregation that is getting older every year? These questions are thrown in my face every time I open advertisements sent to the church and even by those who ask me "is your church growing?"

Strangely enough, the one book that never raises these doubts in my mind is the Bible. The practice of reading the Bible every (or almost every) day, has reminded me that God's community is often in decline. Yes, at times it grows majestically, but that isn't the norm. Those who know me well know that I am often preoccupied with a sense that I'm missing something and if I could just get it I could move my congregation on to bigger and better things.

The thing is, if I didn't read the Bible I wouldn't have these thoughts because I would have given up long ago and be in another line of work. It is Bible reading and prayer that has kept me going even if they haven't completely eradicated my tendency to wonder what I'm doing wrong and read the latest on ways to grow my church.

When I read the Bible I come to realize that God is at work in my life, in my congregation, in my neighborhood. When I read the Bible I come to realize that God is at work in the world in spite of the imperfection, doubt and confusion of the church and God is at work in my life in spite of my own imperfection, doubt and confusion.

I recognize how much God has done and is doing in my life in spite of my spotty attendance and attention to spiritual practices like prayer, Bible reading and fasting.

My prayer is that you will also discover that marvelous truth.

They lynched Jesus!

2013-01-29T22:51:00.001-08:00

I promised to post on how my quest for spirituality has changed my life in the past decade or so. This is not that post (this Thursday, I promise). Instead it is a reflection on my bed-time reading.

It is dangerous to read James Cone in a world where Christian nostalgia for the good ol' days before the 1960's runs rampant through conversations.

I often hear the complaints of folks about the way our society has forgotten God, how children aren't taught right from wrong, how people don't go to church like they used to back in our childhood. I hear about how much better it was in the good old USA when we were kids.

Then I pick up James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Dr. Cone is angry and I am disturbed . I'm disturbed that back in the good ol' days, white people who were Christians and were taught right from wrong, went to schools where prayers were offered and to church on Sunday; back in those days a lynching could draw a crowd of 20,000 in the Bible belt!

I'd forgotten Emmett Till, a 14 year old black teenager, who did the unthinkable and whistled at a married white woman in Mississippi. Her husband and his half brother dragged Emmett out of his great uncle's house one night, gouged out an eye, shot him in the head then dumped his body in a river. That was in 1955. The two men who killed him were acquitted of the crime.

There were even more lynchings in the decades before that. Back before the cultural relativism of the 60's and the permissive parenting of the 50's.

I have no nostalgia for those days. Not that things are any better today. Matthew Shephard was lynched for being gay-- hung on a fence in Wyoming-- not too long ago (in 1998). We live in a world where people are lynched for being different. It's hard to find a time when that hasn't been so.

What bothers James Cone most is that most white American Christians, even theologians, have refused to see the clear connection between crucifixion on a cross and a black man hanging from a tree or a homosexual on a fence. What bothers me is that I haven't thought much of the connection and would have found it impious to assert it in the past. My sense of the true love and solidarity of Jesus is weak. What bothers me is that I'm not as angry as James Cone. My sense of justice is diminished. What bothers me is that I'm not sure I would stand up to such injustices if I saw them today in my own neighborhood. I fear that I am a coward.

What gives me hope is that Jesus stands in solidarity with those who have been lynched whether black, brown or white, male or female, straight or gay. And Jesus forgives those of us who shout "crucify", or hang back from the lynching, assenting to it by our silence and inactivity.

I began this post by explaining that I would post on my quest for spirituality later. But this post is also about my quest for spirituality. I want a spirituality that trains me to be virtuous: faithful, hopeful, loving, and courageous. As I read The Cross and the Lynching Tree,I realize I have a long way to go. I need to find spiritual practices that train me in courage. Spirituality is a way of connecting to God in order to become what we were made to be. We were made to be courageous. I'm not sure what those practices look like today.

May God show us how to learn courage each day.

The Religious, The Spiritual and Other Combinations

2013-01-25T16:57:00.003-08:00

"When journalists assess religious change in the early twenty-first century, they talk about the growth of the "spiritual but not religious" and the new atheists. However, the numbers of Americans claiming those labels have been relatively stable in the last decade [1999-2009]. The real switch ha been among those people who once understood themselves to be 'religious only' and who now are heading toward a new self-understanding and public expression--a longing, perhaps--to be "spiritual and religious."
Christianity After Religion p. 94

In 1999 the Gallup polled Americans on whether they considered themselves to be spiritual or religious.

Here are the results:
Spiritual only 30%
Religious only 54%
Both spiritual & religious 6%
Neither spiritual nor religious 9%

The first and fourth categories garnered most of the news over the next decade. A renewed spat of books on atheism by the "four horsemen of atheism"* or the "new atheists" were selling well with their proclamation that religion was on its way out. Surely atheism was on the rise and the last category was growing. The "spiritual only" category were people who wouldn't darken the doors of a church and the large number looked like another bad sign for churches and religion.

However, Diana Butler Bass draws attention to a statistic in a follow-up survey, a decade later. In 2009 Princeton Survey Research asked the question again.

Here are the results:
Spiritual only 30%
Religious only 9%
Both spiritual & religious 48%
Neither spiritual nor religious 9%

What has happened? The spiritual but not religious and the neither spiritual nor religious look the same in 1999 and 2009. The change is in how, apparently, religious people are now embracing spirituality.

Bass offers several explanations for what happened: the demographic shift as older "religious only" people were replaced by younger ones who weren't afraid of the "s" word; the widening in meaning of the word spirituality from its entanglement with New Age thought in the 1990's and the possibility that the questions asked were different enough to elicit different answers. She even goes so far to suggest that the "horrible decade" beginning with the religious fundamentalist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 made the religious seek new ways to explain their faith. For example: "I'm a spiritual person who happens to go to church."

All of these play a part, I am sure. But I have noticed in my church as well as in my own life, more appreciation and even longing for the spiritual even if we don't exactly know how to go about becoming spiritual.

I remember interviewing at several churches in 2004 where I was told one of the things they hoped the next pastor could do was to help the church board grow to be spiritual leaders. I asked them what they meant. They didn't really know except that it sounded right. I didn't know either. O sure, I knew about prayer and Bible study, confession and communion but I wasn't sure how we could be spiritual leaders. I still don't have the final answer but as I look back on my life and practices since 2004 I see that I have changed. My quest for spirituality has changed my life, my ministry and even my religion.

Thanks to Christianity After Religion I've been able to look back and see some changes in my life. Next week I promise to share some changes with you.

*The four horsemen are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Not everyone in the neither spiritual nor religious is an atheist, of course (based on other polls perhaps only 30% in this category would call themselves atheists).

Christianity After Religion: is my church toast?

2013-01-23T21:58:00.003-08:00

Christianity After Religion is infuriating in places. Bass aims to disorient us in order to reorient us. I know I was ready to throw it down on several occasions and figuratively had to hold my nose as I read page after page and seethed.

But the reading was worth it.

My anger emerged around page 18 when Bass began to report the sense of many today that the church is irrelevant, hypocritical and not worth the time of day and it ended around page 64. To illustrate, let's look at Bass's example of a non-churchgoer who she calls "Ellen." Bass's Ellen is the 21st century replacement for "Sheila."

"Sheila" was the face of late 20th century individualistic spirituality in Robert Bellah's influential 1985 book Habits of the Heart. Sheila had invented her own religion "Sheilaism" which was based on what seemed right to her: loving yourself and being gentle to yourself, taking care of one another. Bellah saw in Sheila the potential that America could have 220 million religions.

Bass suggests that things are different in the early 21st century and to illustrate that change she introduces us to Ellen. Ellen has been Roman Catholic, Mainline Protestant and Conservative as well. Every church she has been part of has not met her specifications: too authoritarian or argumentative or not enough service to the poor. So Ellen has stopped going to church.

Ellen touched a raw nerve in me. Yes, it is true that many people in church don't do a lot for their neighbors. Yes it is true that church people argue about all sorts of silly stuff. Yes it is true that we have a legacy (and in many cases a continuing one) of racism, patriarchy, homophobia and paying lip service to the words of Jesus. But at the same time, there are churches out there where people are trying to love Jesus and serve their neighbors. There are churches out there where people are accepted for who they are and not judged and I happen to think I attend one of them.

But, I also know that my church and I have a long way to go. None of us is serving at the same level as Jesus. Sometimes we argue with each other and even belittle one another. We differ as to exactly what the freedom of the gospel means. And sometimes when I hear criticisms like Ellen's I start to wonder what, if anything we can do right. I get defensive, I think of rejoinders. Here's one: No one in my church follows Jesus as well as I do. Heck, my ideal self is a pretty darn good follower of Jesus. But then when my family and close friends point out the ways my true self falls far short of the ideal self that occupies my mind's eye... Well, I'm just another beggar. I'm not any better than the others. And I suspect that her aspirations aside, Ellen in practice fits right in with us church people.

At bottom, I suspect my real beef with the Ellen's of the world is that I too am aware of the church's limitations but I still suck it up and go. Why can't Ellen grow up and sit her rear in a pew?

But Diana Butler Bass wants me to get past this understandable reaction. She wants me to recognize that Ellen is not Sheila. Ellen's problem isn't that she thinks church is too demanding but that it isn't demanding enough. Ellen doesn't walk away from church because she's an individualist (like Sheila) but because she wants a better community. Bass wants churchgoers like me to notice the dissatisfaction and even anger that is felt by many (but by no means all) of the non-churchgoers in our world. Oddly enough, I even connect with it!

The truth is, Bass is aware of the fact that Ellen's portrayal of Christianity does not hold for many congregations. Nevertheless, until we greet the Ellen's of the world with something different from defensiveness, we won't have a prayer. All we have is the sense that the world is going to "Ellen a handbasket" and the church is toast.

I'm glad I persisted in reading through pages 18-62 of Christianity After Religion. It felt like a slap in the face but I am more ready to ask questions of the many folks I know who quickly say "no thank you" to any invitation to church but are still looking for ways to connect with God and even a community. I'm looking forward to asking people questions about how they see spirituality, religion and church. After all, as Bass points out, one of the untold stories of religion in the early 21st century is the large number of folks who have gone from being "religious only" to "spiritual and religious." That is the topic for my next post.

Do it for the Lord!

2012-12-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

The word of the Lord of hosts came to Zechariah and said: "Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink only for yourselves?" (Zechariah 7.5-6).

I remember playing in a Church basketball league as a child. Before the game it was common for teams to circle up, put their hands together and on the count of three shout: "Do it for the Lord!" For whatever reason our team never used this cheer, we always shouted, "hustle!" or "Eagles!". Nevertheless I was always taken by the more spiritual cheer of our opponents.

Zechariah poses the question: how do we do things for the Lord? We can fast or celebrate a holy day but in the end the action is our own, done in our own self interest or for our own enjoyment. It seems odd, now that I think of it, to encourage children to play basketball for the Lord. Surely its a trivial game. And when I eat and drink, I am thankful to God for the food provided but I eat because I am hungry and I need sustenance. What does it mean to do these activities for the Lord and not (only) for ourselves?

Of course, all of our actions are quite trivial if viewed from a large enough perspective: "What is a human that you, God, are mindful of one?" (Psalm 8.1) And yet, from another perspective, none of our actions are trivial. Every action, whether its chewing bread or shooting jump shots has meaning. Every action changes our character and our world, even if just a smidgen.

Zechariah continues a few verses later: "Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another."

Children on a basketball court are developing habits of fair play and conduct toward opponents. The bread we eat provides energy that we can use for justice or to fuel oppressive or apathetic behavior. It's not easy to live an entire life for the Lord but to do so is to live "on earth as in heaven."