By the end of this month I’ll have a new license plate on my car. It won’t be one of the new, free “In God We Trust,” vanity plates. I’m relatively sure I trust God, on most days. What I’m less sure of is: how much I trust God, on any given day, and what is it I trust God with / for, on any give day. There’s a clue.
Any day, every day, is a given day. Each day comes to us as a gift from God. Whether we are mindful of that, of course, is a whole ‘nother story!
Some folks I know contend that what we call faith really is trust. The intellectual, emotional state of believing may best be described, in English, with the word, confidence – a synonym for trust. Of course, in our everyday speech we don’t make much of a distinction between what we “believe” and what we “know.” It’s only when we say things like, “I’m taking X ‘on faith,’” that we seem to be admitting that our knowledge about X is less than certain, still we choose to hold on to, i.e., “believe in” the truthfulness of X.
One thing I do trust God, “in, with, and under,” as Luther was fond of saying, is what Jesus said in John 10:27-28: My sheep hear my voice. I know the, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
Try preaching on that whole Good Shepherd shtick. It’s not a very urban metaphor. By the time the preacher explains all the nuances of agrarian shepherding and Hebrew prophets’ usages of shepherd imagery for various and sundry Israelite Kings - past, present and future - listeners have mentally retreated to that emotional space in the brain where decisions about the ACLU’s suing the state of Indiana over “religious” license plates are made!
I don’t know, for certain, that I’ve heard the Shepherd’s voice. I believe I’ve heard it before and I believe I will hear it again. I do know that I’m not the world’s best full-time follower.
I don’t know that I’ll have eternal life. I do trust I will and I believe it’s already begun. I have no clue what it means that I (they) will never perish. We translate the Greek word, apollumi, as perish. Its literal definition is: to destroy, as in to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to, ruin, to render useless, or to kill.
I’ve also come to trust that no one snatches me out of the Shepherd’s hand. They don’t have a chance. I do it all for them! No sooner do I trust that I’m held in the palm of God’s hand than I jump off / out, of my own volition. Perhaps it’s because I think I know more or better. Maybe I believe I’m the better navigator. Looks like I’m much more suited to a vanity license plate than I’d like to admit.
I take all sorts of wrong turns, make outrageous maneuvers, go down blind alleys, cross untold byways, retrace my tracks to nowhere and wonder how I arrived onto a strangely random, dangerous road. On most occasions, I have the audacity to blame God for the lost-ness in which I find myself!
Part of what makes that doable, not right but doable, is that God always arrives at my lost-place before I do. I’m learning to trust that. In Romans 8:35ff Paul writes: The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (The Message)
Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Trusting in you, I’ll not snatch vanity from the embrace of victory!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Gut-Check; Soul-Check
Hot town; summer in the city…go lyrics from a golden oldie I still enjoy. Sad to say urban ministry hasn’t kept pace with music’s evolution. What’s a city church to be and to do at a time and place when the chief of police sends five-page memos to the city’s pastors, pleading with them to attend a meeting?
I’m still a fan of a, now, ten-year old article recommending that church folk establish new theologies of creation, redemption, teaching, worship – the hole nine yards - for post-modern metropolitan centers. These should take social realities into account, without using mono-vision. Rather, church folk must use both the lenses of social science and theological science in tandem to ensure faith claims are relevant (not trendy) and concrete (not more blue ribbon commissions), as they articulate the Good News of Jesus Christ. His proclamation was nothing if it wasn’t both concrete and relevant.
Reworking faith and church at this level would include taking into account the very evident urban / suburban apartheid where fear, as well as a variety of –isms, meet. But where to begin.
Let’s start with an old book. Recommended to me, by a brilliant scholar and man with a deep, contemporary, Christian faith, Dr. Stephen G. Ray, Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Theological Institute at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, is Howard Thurman’s, Jesus and the Disinherited.
In his forward, Dr. Vincent Harding highlights the maladies of soul and spirit for which Thurman’s spirituality is the remedy. These inner demons are: fear, hypocrisy and hatred. While Thurman’s insights predate both the civil rights movement, and our own postindustrial experience, those of us whom these demons still hound - and we are legion – still require the divine grace, as well as the determination of will, to acquire the “profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity.”
Dr. Harding also suggests that contemporary experiences of what Thurman addressed are detailed in a work entitled, Testimony. Published in 1994, the book is a collection of essays and poetry written by some forty young African American writers. Natasha Tarpley edits the piece.
If you’re at all feeling like your back is against the wall, (Thurman’s phrase) find someone with whom you might read and discuss Jesus and the Disinherited. It looks to be a way cool gut- and soul-check for would-be brave believers at the edge of a looming hot summer.
I’m still a fan of a, now, ten-year old article recommending that church folk establish new theologies of creation, redemption, teaching, worship – the hole nine yards - for post-modern metropolitan centers. These should take social realities into account, without using mono-vision. Rather, church folk must use both the lenses of social science and theological science in tandem to ensure faith claims are relevant (not trendy) and concrete (not more blue ribbon commissions), as they articulate the Good News of Jesus Christ. His proclamation was nothing if it wasn’t both concrete and relevant.
Reworking faith and church at this level would include taking into account the very evident urban / suburban apartheid where fear, as well as a variety of –isms, meet. But where to begin.
Let’s start with an old book. Recommended to me, by a brilliant scholar and man with a deep, contemporary, Christian faith, Dr. Stephen G. Ray, Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Theological Institute at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, is Howard Thurman’s, Jesus and the Disinherited.
In his forward, Dr. Vincent Harding highlights the maladies of soul and spirit for which Thurman’s spirituality is the remedy. These inner demons are: fear, hypocrisy and hatred. While Thurman’s insights predate both the civil rights movement, and our own postindustrial experience, those of us whom these demons still hound - and we are legion – still require the divine grace, as well as the determination of will, to acquire the “profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity.”
Dr. Harding also suggests that contemporary experiences of what Thurman addressed are detailed in a work entitled, Testimony. Published in 1994, the book is a collection of essays and poetry written by some forty young African American writers. Natasha Tarpley edits the piece.
If you’re at all feeling like your back is against the wall, (Thurman’s phrase) find someone with whom you might read and discuss Jesus and the Disinherited. It looks to be a way cool gut- and soul-check for would-be brave believers at the edge of a looming hot summer.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Make Way for Cho Seung-Hui
Editorialists Leonard Pitts and Eugene Robinson warn us to beware of the narratives we bring to our interpretation of events. Good advice for those of us with children on college campuses this week. Sage advice for college students. Astute observations for people of faith.
It simply cannot be too soon to carry the meta-narrative of scripture as the lens through which we force ourselves to reckon with the events occurring at Virginia Tech. The record of that narrative will, as always, convict and console us amidst our weeping.
Once, again, we’ve witnessed another of civil (not civilized) religion’s “memorial” services which fails to include the perpetrating sinner. Once, again, we’ve demonized a wrong-doers personhood. Once, again, we’ve ethnically cleansed an American cultural phenomenon with loaded descriptors of an immigrant’s long-ago origins, over and against his long-standing American upbringing.
From the same biblical codex that sprouts privately purchased monuments to the biblical Decalogue in public places comes this word: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21.) A later rewrite commands more than avoidance: The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34.)
On Monday we asked of the unfolding, deadly narrative, “Why.” By Wednesday we regretted the storied shooter’s answer; finding him to be neither alien, nor loving, and, by his own account, unloved.
Through our tear blurred vision we get to read this tragic episode inside a grander meta-narrative, the one so many claim to live in, with, and under. Our burning eyes, tear stained cheeks and salt-tasting tongues must find a way for our heavy hearts to makes room in God’s “always for-us, never at-us story” for Cho Seung-Hui.
The God of our, “There’s no way,” is the One who keeps sending us Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. That’s the same Jesus who wept over a city whose inhabitants kept deceiving themselves. It’s he who longed to gather each and all as a hen gathers her chicks, absorbing their pain, protecting their vulnerabilities, even as he lived and died to ensure that Death, no death, is ever the last word for anyone.
For Him, there is no “unlovable.” In Him, even salt-dried lips can heave through the sobbing, “Receive a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Alleluia!”
In short, “Make, we pray, a way out of our, ‘No Way!’”
It simply cannot be too soon to carry the meta-narrative of scripture as the lens through which we force ourselves to reckon with the events occurring at Virginia Tech. The record of that narrative will, as always, convict and console us amidst our weeping.
Once, again, we’ve witnessed another of civil (not civilized) religion’s “memorial” services which fails to include the perpetrating sinner. Once, again, we’ve demonized a wrong-doers personhood. Once, again, we’ve ethnically cleansed an American cultural phenomenon with loaded descriptors of an immigrant’s long-ago origins, over and against his long-standing American upbringing.
From the same biblical codex that sprouts privately purchased monuments to the biblical Decalogue in public places comes this word: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21.) A later rewrite commands more than avoidance: The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34.)
On Monday we asked of the unfolding, deadly narrative, “Why.” By Wednesday we regretted the storied shooter’s answer; finding him to be neither alien, nor loving, and, by his own account, unloved.
Through our tear blurred vision we get to read this tragic episode inside a grander meta-narrative, the one so many claim to live in, with, and under. Our burning eyes, tear stained cheeks and salt-tasting tongues must find a way for our heavy hearts to makes room in God’s “always for-us, never at-us story” for Cho Seung-Hui.
The God of our, “There’s no way,” is the One who keeps sending us Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. That’s the same Jesus who wept over a city whose inhabitants kept deceiving themselves. It’s he who longed to gather each and all as a hen gathers her chicks, absorbing their pain, protecting their vulnerabilities, even as he lived and died to ensure that Death, no death, is ever the last word for anyone.
For Him, there is no “unlovable.” In Him, even salt-dried lips can heave through the sobbing, “Receive a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Alleluia!”
In short, “Make, we pray, a way out of our, ‘No Way!’”
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Jesus is Risen! - Now What? Tell Imus
If you’re tired of hearing about Don Imus, you came to the wrong place. Mind you, I hadn’t intended to talk about him. In last week’s Easter message I said the evangelists don’t intend to address either “how” or “why” questions about Jesus’ resurrection. Their focus, ours too, is on the “so what” question. The title of that sermon was, “Jesus is Risen! – So What?”
I said, answering that “so what” question, “Easter is God’s new way of saying, ‘I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.’”
Every year, on the week after Easter, we hear about Thomas. My first thoughts about this week’s message focused on what it means to believe, or how we might distinguish our beliefs from our believing. That seemed like a reasonable follow-up to the “so-what” message. But in the wake of the Don Imus debacle, “Show-Me” Thomas and his poking fingers will have to wait until next year.
Throughout the week that doomed Don, what played out was another example of our culture’s doing a poor imitation of church. Many of the right words were in play: confession, contrition, penance, forgiveness, and forgetfulness, but too few Christian attitudes, principles and behaviors were on display.
Despite the abundance of “reverends” on so many talk shows, Jesus was under-represented. Most talking-head clergy sounded like graduates of the schools of Annas and Caiaphas, rather than alumnae of the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s verse 19 – 23 from the 20th chapter of John’s Gospel that’s on point here. See, the focus here is, “Jesus is Risen! – Now What?” That was missing from our “Christian nation’s” response to the peculiar pain Imus inflicted on the women from Rutgers as well as the sadness and outrage we felt.
Look at what happens in this upper room on Easter evening, before Thomas’ goings and comings redirect our focus. First, Jesus shows up. Amidst the disciples’ worst fears, Jesus hasn’t abandoned them.
Next, before they can react or respond, he offers Peace, Shalom. This isn’t wishful thinking on Jesus’ part. Neither is it some high-fivin’ homeboy’s way of saying, “Whazzup!” Nor is Jesus suggesting that they get caught up in some inner tranquility.
What Jesus is bringing and giving is the belonging and wholeness that comes from the dawn of God’s Kingdom Rule. It’s God’s new gift, through this risen Christ, from the future, here and now! Look at the third verse of Herbert F. Brokering’s hymn, Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!: Jesus the vine, we are the branches; life in the Spirit the fruit of the tree; heaven to earth, Christ to the people, gift of the future now flowing to me.
Then Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Though fresh from the future, in some sort of different body that’s able to move through locked doors, this risen Jesus has continuity with the Jesus they knew, loved, and watched get buried. They’re ecstatic.
Lest they miss the true source of their joy, he tells them again, “Peace be with you.” Rejoice in this life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making Shalom. Under this holy rule, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Don’t miss this. This verb, “has sent,” is the past perfect form of the verb, “to send.” That means it’s an action begun in the past, which continues in the present and goes into the future! Isn’t that cool? And you thought those Language Arts teachers were wasting our time!
Breathing on them, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This breathing-thing is crucial. We should hear, here, the same activity that occurred in Genesis where the Spirit-wind blew over the chaos and tamed it. We should hear, here, the same Genesis-action by which God breathed God’s own self into a mound of clay.
With this new-creation action, Jesus declares, Have on you, in you and with you that Advocate I promised you. Be empowered and become emboldened to do as I have done. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
This is huge. This is not merely Jesus inventing some ritual action we call confession and forgiveness. Jesus is doing more than establishing what we call the Office of the Keys so pastors can comfort the anguish of morally afflicted members.
You see where this is goin’? What the disciples hear Jesus say – by the way, he’s speaking to us as well – are words from the same guy who washed their feet. This same Jesus said, “If, I, your Master and Lord, have washed your feet, you should do likewise. I have given you an example.”
The One who’s sending them is the One who told them to love others as he loved them. That same One said, “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The last paragraph of Easter Sunday’s message was, “So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people, we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!”
Where were all the Easter people on Easter Monday when Don Imus needed them most? The only one who came close was, C. Vivian Springer, the women’s basketball coach at Rutgers, and even she, in her own woundedness couldn’t get all the way there.
Don Imus is a public sinner. We’re not talking politically incorrect, intellectually challenged, morally bankrupt, ethical lapse, or slip-of-the-tongue. We’re talking, the guy doesn’t get it. But the only difference between Don Imus, public sinner, and you and me, is the word, public.
We’re also talking about someone who, like us, is never going to make it on his own. Look at Acts 5:31, from a testimony Peter made, after he, like us, had been breathed on and sent, “God exalted him (Jesus) at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”
Who, in the name of God, is going to give repentance, i.e., change of mind and change of heart, to Don Imus? It seems to me, if the man has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of the pit, it will only be because someone like you or me, an Easter person, washes his sinful, undeserving feet – even before he confesses adequately or apologizes appropriately.
That’s how it was, and is, for us isn’t it? While we still were in our sin, God so loved the world that he sent the Son to save the world not to condemn the world. Jesus is risen – now what?
Look, Don Imus is both responsible and, in this case, blameworthy for his actions. We have a right to expect there to be consequences. He may even suffer through these. What we don’t have a right to expect are consequences intended to inflict pain, cause shame, or spring from revenge. That’s not what forgiving or retaining sin means under God’s Shalom.
I’m not imagining y’all rushin' outa here to go phone Imus. But I can imagine, in fact I pray for, and will do whatever I can to help your leaving here and finding someone you know, close to home, maybe in school, perhaps in the next pew, at work, or where you volunteer who is responsible, blameworthy and stuck in a Pit they can’t get out of on there own.
The public of their sin may even have been directed at you. If you, an Easter person, don’t tell them the Good News, that Jesus is risen – now what, means Jesus has opened his crossed up arms wide enough to include them in his new Shalom loving and belonging, how will they ever trust that message enough to believe the risen Jesus just might give them repentance, too? If you don’t embrace them with God’s otherwise, how can they ever know risen Jesus now has a place for them at this table?
The new creation power Jesus gives us by the presence of the Spirit is the mighty dose of grace we need to carry on, to put into real people and real places the Shalom Jesus went ahead to bring back for us. It’s a huge task. It can often be very nearly unbearably unpleasant. Look at verses 30-31: But these (signs) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through that believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus is risen – now what? It's time to wash feet, even of the nastiest, not nice at all, down-right ugly and undeserving. That’s what believing and living in Jesus looks like.
I said, answering that “so what” question, “Easter is God’s new way of saying, ‘I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.’”
Every year, on the week after Easter, we hear about Thomas. My first thoughts about this week’s message focused on what it means to believe, or how we might distinguish our beliefs from our believing. That seemed like a reasonable follow-up to the “so-what” message. But in the wake of the Don Imus debacle, “Show-Me” Thomas and his poking fingers will have to wait until next year.
Throughout the week that doomed Don, what played out was another example of our culture’s doing a poor imitation of church. Many of the right words were in play: confession, contrition, penance, forgiveness, and forgetfulness, but too few Christian attitudes, principles and behaviors were on display.
Despite the abundance of “reverends” on so many talk shows, Jesus was under-represented. Most talking-head clergy sounded like graduates of the schools of Annas and Caiaphas, rather than alumnae of the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s verse 19 – 23 from the 20th chapter of John’s Gospel that’s on point here. See, the focus here is, “Jesus is Risen! – Now What?” That was missing from our “Christian nation’s” response to the peculiar pain Imus inflicted on the women from Rutgers as well as the sadness and outrage we felt.
Look at what happens in this upper room on Easter evening, before Thomas’ goings and comings redirect our focus. First, Jesus shows up. Amidst the disciples’ worst fears, Jesus hasn’t abandoned them.
Next, before they can react or respond, he offers Peace, Shalom. This isn’t wishful thinking on Jesus’ part. Neither is it some high-fivin’ homeboy’s way of saying, “Whazzup!” Nor is Jesus suggesting that they get caught up in some inner tranquility.
What Jesus is bringing and giving is the belonging and wholeness that comes from the dawn of God’s Kingdom Rule. It’s God’s new gift, through this risen Christ, from the future, here and now! Look at the third verse of Herbert F. Brokering’s hymn, Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!: Jesus the vine, we are the branches; life in the Spirit the fruit of the tree; heaven to earth, Christ to the people, gift of the future now flowing to me.
Then Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Though fresh from the future, in some sort of different body that’s able to move through locked doors, this risen Jesus has continuity with the Jesus they knew, loved, and watched get buried. They’re ecstatic.
Lest they miss the true source of their joy, he tells them again, “Peace be with you.” Rejoice in this life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making Shalom. Under this holy rule, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Don’t miss this. This verb, “has sent,” is the past perfect form of the verb, “to send.” That means it’s an action begun in the past, which continues in the present and goes into the future! Isn’t that cool? And you thought those Language Arts teachers were wasting our time!
Breathing on them, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This breathing-thing is crucial. We should hear, here, the same activity that occurred in Genesis where the Spirit-wind blew over the chaos and tamed it. We should hear, here, the same Genesis-action by which God breathed God’s own self into a mound of clay.
With this new-creation action, Jesus declares, Have on you, in you and with you that Advocate I promised you. Be empowered and become emboldened to do as I have done. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
This is huge. This is not merely Jesus inventing some ritual action we call confession and forgiveness. Jesus is doing more than establishing what we call the Office of the Keys so pastors can comfort the anguish of morally afflicted members.
You see where this is goin’? What the disciples hear Jesus say – by the way, he’s speaking to us as well – are words from the same guy who washed their feet. This same Jesus said, “If, I, your Master and Lord, have washed your feet, you should do likewise. I have given you an example.”
The One who’s sending them is the One who told them to love others as he loved them. That same One said, “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The last paragraph of Easter Sunday’s message was, “So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people, we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!”
Where were all the Easter people on Easter Monday when Don Imus needed them most? The only one who came close was, C. Vivian Springer, the women’s basketball coach at Rutgers, and even she, in her own woundedness couldn’t get all the way there.
Don Imus is a public sinner. We’re not talking politically incorrect, intellectually challenged, morally bankrupt, ethical lapse, or slip-of-the-tongue. We’re talking, the guy doesn’t get it. But the only difference between Don Imus, public sinner, and you and me, is the word, public.
We’re also talking about someone who, like us, is never going to make it on his own. Look at Acts 5:31, from a testimony Peter made, after he, like us, had been breathed on and sent, “God exalted him (Jesus) at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”
Who, in the name of God, is going to give repentance, i.e., change of mind and change of heart, to Don Imus? It seems to me, if the man has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of the pit, it will only be because someone like you or me, an Easter person, washes his sinful, undeserving feet – even before he confesses adequately or apologizes appropriately.
That’s how it was, and is, for us isn’t it? While we still were in our sin, God so loved the world that he sent the Son to save the world not to condemn the world. Jesus is risen – now what?
Look, Don Imus is both responsible and, in this case, blameworthy for his actions. We have a right to expect there to be consequences. He may even suffer through these. What we don’t have a right to expect are consequences intended to inflict pain, cause shame, or spring from revenge. That’s not what forgiving or retaining sin means under God’s Shalom.
I’m not imagining y’all rushin' outa here to go phone Imus. But I can imagine, in fact I pray for, and will do whatever I can to help your leaving here and finding someone you know, close to home, maybe in school, perhaps in the next pew, at work, or where you volunteer who is responsible, blameworthy and stuck in a Pit they can’t get out of on there own.
The public of their sin may even have been directed at you. If you, an Easter person, don’t tell them the Good News, that Jesus is risen – now what, means Jesus has opened his crossed up arms wide enough to include them in his new Shalom loving and belonging, how will they ever trust that message enough to believe the risen Jesus just might give them repentance, too? If you don’t embrace them with God’s otherwise, how can they ever know risen Jesus now has a place for them at this table?
The new creation power Jesus gives us by the presence of the Spirit is the mighty dose of grace we need to carry on, to put into real people and real places the Shalom Jesus went ahead to bring back for us. It’s a huge task. It can often be very nearly unbearably unpleasant. Look at verses 30-31: But these (signs) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through that believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus is risen – now what? It's time to wash feet, even of the nastiest, not nice at all, down-right ugly and undeserving. That’s what believing and living in Jesus looks like.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Trusting Easter's Enough - Whenever!
I love Easter. After more than two thousand years of fearing science; imitating emperors; impersonating philosophers; mirroring cruel dictators; adopting the tactics of snake-oil salesmen; and diluting the sheer gall of the Gospel, Easter brings us back to the clear message that through this Christ our lives belong to God.
It’s a message that’s simple to say, but not quite so easy to understand. Finding room to enter the message today, against the backdrop of Don Imus’ “comedy,” the death of a Kokomo guardsman in Iraq, or worse, the silent, private sufferings of your own heart may leave you in one of two places. Either you tolerate Easter even though you think this is all a bunch of hooey, but it’s harmless hooey, or, you’ve given yourself over to the truth of this incredible drama that’s beyond your wildest dreams.
What’s the message? That God sent Jesus to say and do everything he did, and to validate that God raised Jesus from the dead - and by that act God has triumphed over sin, death, and the devil.
If you take this at all seriously, you’ve had to, or will have to, try and wrap your brain around it. You’ll go after as many facts as you can. You’ll look for evidence and proof and test it all out against alternative theories. That’s part of what it means to have a mind in the first place. Then, you’ll move on to a way of trusting this so that metaphors and songs and poems do a better job of saying who you are inside the story of this God. That’s part of what it means to have a heart touched and grasped by this kind of God.
You can certainly enter the message today - either for the first time, or as a reaffirmation that this message defines who you are in ways that no other story can do. Meaning that, before your anything else - parent, spouse, employee, offspring, widow, divorcee, entrepreneur - and deeper than your anything else - you belong to this God, through this Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
The consequences, or effect, of this basic message - that:
• our sin, that is our over and over again tendency to miss the mark about who we are, is over come
• death is not the final word about who we are and who we are to become
• the devil, or any other power that competes for our loyalty, has been defeated.
The results of living in this message are radical and comprehensive:
• looking forward to the future replaces anxiety
• shame gives way to serenity
• distrust is displaced by joy
• self-discipline replaces addiction
• meaning overcomes maddening efforts to make an identity for ourselves
• relationship outstrips a desire for revenge
• persistence overpowers boredom.
• death gives way to life; darkness to light; fear to conviction; despair to confidence.
These effects are something like the fulfillment of your wildest dreams, your deepest hopes, your secret wishes. Only living this message, inside this story your hopes, dreams, longings, and desires spring from the heart of God - for you - not from your own, not completely trustworthy heart.
And there’s the rub, isn’t it? The Easter message goes against our grain, stands everything we know on its head. Despite appearances to the contrary, death is not the final word. Death is a door-way to a life that still, keeps on, continuing in God.
But instead of trusting in that, receiving an incredible freedom in the here and now, freedom from making our own meaning; we focus on the what of it, and the how of it, not the why of it.
Not one of the Gospels tells us what happened on that Sunday morning. They do - each one - all tell us that the Jesus who was crossed up, then shut up - somehow kept up coming after them - for them. That’s the heart of the message that Easter brings. Yes, in Jesus’ resurrection sin, sickness and the devil have been undone. AND, this God does that for you, for me. Despite everything we know, because of everything we know.
One of the grandest prayers in the Jewish Seder meal is the Dayenu prayer. After the eldest in attendance answers the question from the youngest, “Why is this night different from any other;” those gathered pray this way:
Dayenu - enough:
• O God had you made us in your image and likeness
• had you clothed us when we offended you in the garden
• spared Noah in the great flood
• given Abraham a son
• spared Isaac
• freed us from bondage in Egypt
• given us the 10 commandments and Torah
• forgiven King David his wrong-doing, etc.
But the facts of that prayer deny the truth of our being - a truth God knows and longs to undo. For us, it’s never enough.
And so, in the fullness of time God took flesh, became Emmanuel, God-with-Us. The heart of the Easter message is God for us. God, hard at work, trying to be enough for us. The crucified Jesus, still calling Mary’s name, still explaining scripture to the two on the road to Emmaus, still showing up in a locked room, still putting Thomas’ fingers into his wounds, still cooking breakfast for friends on the beach, still coming for us gathered in his name, still presenting himself to us in the Holy Spirit, in this word, at this meal.
Try as we do, it’s still never enough. Paul says, this side of the grave it will never be enough. We see through a glass, dimly. We have but a foretaste of the feast to come. He also says this: When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. That means “when,” as in whenever.
Despite what appears to us to be the continuing power of sin, death and the devil, glimpses of that Easter resurrection’s WHEN are breaking out all over. Whenever:
• the sun peaks over the horizon one more day
• a way out of now-way suddenly appears
• strangers put their strangeness aside in favor of relationship
• we let go of vengeance
• someone chooses to forget why they’re angry
• we employ our talents to make beauty, art, music, kindness
• we make room in our hearts for friendship and forgiveness
• our mouth’s declarations about injustice guide our hands and feet toward building justice.
Is this message believable? Not the way we usually use that word. Even Paul said as much. This is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Then he went on to stake his own life on both the reality and the truth of the message.
So have countless others. The women who were last at the cross and first at the tomb believed. So did the centurion at the cross and the wealthy Joseph of Arimethea. So have famous folks like: Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Barbara Jordan, James Weldon Johnson, and Senator Paul Simon.
So have the not so famous. Like Ollie Filer, Bill Ecker, Dorothy Siersbeck, Chuck Schroeder, Irene Strom – David Neil Simmons of Kokomo, and our own lists could go on and on.
With that great cloud of witnesses, I stand on the shoulders of those first apostolic believers who trusted the why of it, without giving a hoot for either the what or the how of it - and am privileged to shout, once again, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
It’s a message that’s simple to say, but not quite so easy to understand. Finding room to enter the message today, against the backdrop of Don Imus’ “comedy,” the death of a Kokomo guardsman in Iraq, or worse, the silent, private sufferings of your own heart may leave you in one of two places. Either you tolerate Easter even though you think this is all a bunch of hooey, but it’s harmless hooey, or, you’ve given yourself over to the truth of this incredible drama that’s beyond your wildest dreams.
What’s the message? That God sent Jesus to say and do everything he did, and to validate that God raised Jesus from the dead - and by that act God has triumphed over sin, death, and the devil.
If you take this at all seriously, you’ve had to, or will have to, try and wrap your brain around it. You’ll go after as many facts as you can. You’ll look for evidence and proof and test it all out against alternative theories. That’s part of what it means to have a mind in the first place. Then, you’ll move on to a way of trusting this so that metaphors and songs and poems do a better job of saying who you are inside the story of this God. That’s part of what it means to have a heart touched and grasped by this kind of God.
You can certainly enter the message today - either for the first time, or as a reaffirmation that this message defines who you are in ways that no other story can do. Meaning that, before your anything else - parent, spouse, employee, offspring, widow, divorcee, entrepreneur - and deeper than your anything else - you belong to this God, through this Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
The consequences, or effect, of this basic message - that:
• our sin, that is our over and over again tendency to miss the mark about who we are, is over come
• death is not the final word about who we are and who we are to become
• the devil, or any other power that competes for our loyalty, has been defeated.
The results of living in this message are radical and comprehensive:
• looking forward to the future replaces anxiety
• shame gives way to serenity
• distrust is displaced by joy
• self-discipline replaces addiction
• meaning overcomes maddening efforts to make an identity for ourselves
• relationship outstrips a desire for revenge
• persistence overpowers boredom.
• death gives way to life; darkness to light; fear to conviction; despair to confidence.
These effects are something like the fulfillment of your wildest dreams, your deepest hopes, your secret wishes. Only living this message, inside this story your hopes, dreams, longings, and desires spring from the heart of God - for you - not from your own, not completely trustworthy heart.
And there’s the rub, isn’t it? The Easter message goes against our grain, stands everything we know on its head. Despite appearances to the contrary, death is not the final word. Death is a door-way to a life that still, keeps on, continuing in God.
But instead of trusting in that, receiving an incredible freedom in the here and now, freedom from making our own meaning; we focus on the what of it, and the how of it, not the why of it.
Not one of the Gospels tells us what happened on that Sunday morning. They do - each one - all tell us that the Jesus who was crossed up, then shut up - somehow kept up coming after them - for them. That’s the heart of the message that Easter brings. Yes, in Jesus’ resurrection sin, sickness and the devil have been undone. AND, this God does that for you, for me. Despite everything we know, because of everything we know.
One of the grandest prayers in the Jewish Seder meal is the Dayenu prayer. After the eldest in attendance answers the question from the youngest, “Why is this night different from any other;” those gathered pray this way:
Dayenu - enough:
• O God had you made us in your image and likeness
• had you clothed us when we offended you in the garden
• spared Noah in the great flood
• given Abraham a son
• spared Isaac
• freed us from bondage in Egypt
• given us the 10 commandments and Torah
• forgiven King David his wrong-doing, etc.
But the facts of that prayer deny the truth of our being - a truth God knows and longs to undo. For us, it’s never enough.
And so, in the fullness of time God took flesh, became Emmanuel, God-with-Us. The heart of the Easter message is God for us. God, hard at work, trying to be enough for us. The crucified Jesus, still calling Mary’s name, still explaining scripture to the two on the road to Emmaus, still showing up in a locked room, still putting Thomas’ fingers into his wounds, still cooking breakfast for friends on the beach, still coming for us gathered in his name, still presenting himself to us in the Holy Spirit, in this word, at this meal.
Try as we do, it’s still never enough. Paul says, this side of the grave it will never be enough. We see through a glass, dimly. We have but a foretaste of the feast to come. He also says this: When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. That means “when,” as in whenever.
Despite what appears to us to be the continuing power of sin, death and the devil, glimpses of that Easter resurrection’s WHEN are breaking out all over. Whenever:
• the sun peaks over the horizon one more day
• a way out of now-way suddenly appears
• strangers put their strangeness aside in favor of relationship
• we let go of vengeance
• someone chooses to forget why they’re angry
• we employ our talents to make beauty, art, music, kindness
• we make room in our hearts for friendship and forgiveness
• our mouth’s declarations about injustice guide our hands and feet toward building justice.
Is this message believable? Not the way we usually use that word. Even Paul said as much. This is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Then he went on to stake his own life on both the reality and the truth of the message.
So have countless others. The women who were last at the cross and first at the tomb believed. So did the centurion at the cross and the wealthy Joseph of Arimethea. So have famous folks like: Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Barbara Jordan, James Weldon Johnson, and Senator Paul Simon.
So have the not so famous. Like Ollie Filer, Bill Ecker, Dorothy Siersbeck, Chuck Schroeder, Irene Strom – David Neil Simmons of Kokomo, and our own lists could go on and on.
With that great cloud of witnesses, I stand on the shoulders of those first apostolic believers who trusted the why of it, without giving a hoot for either the what or the how of it - and am privileged to shout, once again, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Monday, April 09, 2007
Jesus is Risen! - So What?
If you ask, most people will tell you the four evangelists give us all the wrong information about Easter morning. One source is Luke 24:1-12. Inquiring minds want to know:
• how did this happen
• when was it - just before dawn, at dawn, or after dawn
• did Jesus raise up, or was he raised up
• was the tomb’s stone pulled out or pushed out
• who folded the linens
• does the son of God make his own bed
• was there 1 angel like Mark says, or 2 like Luke says
• were soldiers on guard, as Matthew says, or not.
Of course, if those archeologists are right and they’ve found the bones of Jesus, none of that matters.
This is at least the second team of scientists in the last 30 years to make such a claim. So before we get too bothered about what they found, maybe we should let them finishing arguing over which group has the right set of Jesus’ bones. It reminds me of the time I spent a month touring Europe. Having gone through nearly 30 churches and cathedrals I saw at least 12 kneecaps belonging to John the Baptist. Remember, the Bible says John ate locusts. It doesn’t say he ate so many he turned into one!
If we believe the evangelists don’t answer the right questions, it could be that we’re asking the wrong questions. Most of us have lots of experience with that. Students ask teachers, “Will this piece of information be on the test?” The teacher answers, “The test is on the whole unit.” You say, “Hey Mom, what’s for supper?” She says, “I’m the adult here; whatever I fix, you eat; understand!” You ask a dealer how much a car costs and you get about as many prices as there are ducks floating in a shooting gallery. Ask your spouse, “Honey, what do you want for your birthday?” He or she says, “Surprise me.” You just have to make sure that really doesn’t happen.
The evangelists are not answering “how” questions. They’re answering the “so what” question. Now most of us don’t ask that question. Because we’ve been through this story so many times; because we’ve heard so many sermons, that question isn’t much on our minds.
We imagine God rewarded Jesus for being such a good guy. Or, God finally admitted that since Jesus was willing to jump through such a huge hoop on Good Friday, God owed resurrection to Jesus. In our own way half-hearted amazement, we say Jesus’ resurrection is God’s way of fixing God’s “Oops!”
Amazement is not a bad thing. Luke says Peter, once he’d proved to himself that his women friends weren’t hysterical with grief, was amazed by the empty tomb. Luke also says, in verse 12, Peter left the tomb as unbelieving as he was before he ran there. Amazement doesn’t address the “so what” question.
The word “amaze,” or some form of it, is used roughly 60 times in the bible. No one who has that feeling is moved to faith merely by having that feeling. The same bible uses the word “remember” just over 200 times. Even when the word is used in reference to God, as in, God set a bow in the sky so God would remember the promise God made to Noah (Geneses 9:8-17), remembering brings those who do that into relationship.
Amazement is often the feeling we have when we’re hanging so tightly onto the last thing we believe God did, we have difficulty believing the next, new thing God is doing.
Luke says, in 24:6-10, when the women followed the instruction of the two men in dazzling clothes to remember Jesus’ words, faith seized them and they ran to tell the apostles that Jesus was risen.
Amazement looks backwards, fixes its gaze there. Remembering reaches backwards and brings something forward into our present reality.
Remember Christmas? We say God is doing a new thing for the world; such a new thing, in fact, that God requires a new name, Emmanuel, God-With-Us.
Remember the Sermon on the Mount? We say God is teaching a new thing to the world.
Remember Maundy Thursday? We say God is feeding a new thing to the world, and establishing a new way to remain present in the world.
Remember Good Friday? We say God is finding a new way to conquer evil, as well as a new way to demonstrate the depth of God’s love for us.
So what is Easter? It’s God’s new way of saying, “I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.”
Will you be only amazed by that, or will you remember that, from the beginning, my heart’s desire is to keep creating you, to keep saving and freeing you and to keep on blessing?
Will you be only amazed by my promises, or will you remember them well enough so you can see and join me in living in, with and under them, as they keep unfolding in your life and in your world?
Will you be only amazed by my Son, Jesus’ wise teachings, wonderful works, and profound prayers, or will you remember to expect him, alive, to go ahead of you each day, everywhere you go, offering you new opportunities to complete the good work God has begun in you?
Will you be only amazed by these new things or will you remember them, bringing them forward to help you to comprehend and to celebrate whatever way cool way I dream up next to hold you, to forgive you, to love you and to lead you?
Will you be only amazed by one long ago Easter, or will you remember that Easter is more than an event; it’s more than a nice story designed to tidy up a messy Friday. Can you remember; Easter is a new relationship, a new identity, your new autobiography, alone and together, you are my Easter people.
So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!
• how did this happen
• when was it - just before dawn, at dawn, or after dawn
• did Jesus raise up, or was he raised up
• was the tomb’s stone pulled out or pushed out
• who folded the linens
• does the son of God make his own bed
• was there 1 angel like Mark says, or 2 like Luke says
• were soldiers on guard, as Matthew says, or not.
Of course, if those archeologists are right and they’ve found the bones of Jesus, none of that matters.
This is at least the second team of scientists in the last 30 years to make such a claim. So before we get too bothered about what they found, maybe we should let them finishing arguing over which group has the right set of Jesus’ bones. It reminds me of the time I spent a month touring Europe. Having gone through nearly 30 churches and cathedrals I saw at least 12 kneecaps belonging to John the Baptist. Remember, the Bible says John ate locusts. It doesn’t say he ate so many he turned into one!
If we believe the evangelists don’t answer the right questions, it could be that we’re asking the wrong questions. Most of us have lots of experience with that. Students ask teachers, “Will this piece of information be on the test?” The teacher answers, “The test is on the whole unit.” You say, “Hey Mom, what’s for supper?” She says, “I’m the adult here; whatever I fix, you eat; understand!” You ask a dealer how much a car costs and you get about as many prices as there are ducks floating in a shooting gallery. Ask your spouse, “Honey, what do you want for your birthday?” He or she says, “Surprise me.” You just have to make sure that really doesn’t happen.
The evangelists are not answering “how” questions. They’re answering the “so what” question. Now most of us don’t ask that question. Because we’ve been through this story so many times; because we’ve heard so many sermons, that question isn’t much on our minds.
We imagine God rewarded Jesus for being such a good guy. Or, God finally admitted that since Jesus was willing to jump through such a huge hoop on Good Friday, God owed resurrection to Jesus. In our own way half-hearted amazement, we say Jesus’ resurrection is God’s way of fixing God’s “Oops!”
Amazement is not a bad thing. Luke says Peter, once he’d proved to himself that his women friends weren’t hysterical with grief, was amazed by the empty tomb. Luke also says, in verse 12, Peter left the tomb as unbelieving as he was before he ran there. Amazement doesn’t address the “so what” question.
The word “amaze,” or some form of it, is used roughly 60 times in the bible. No one who has that feeling is moved to faith merely by having that feeling. The same bible uses the word “remember” just over 200 times. Even when the word is used in reference to God, as in, God set a bow in the sky so God would remember the promise God made to Noah (Geneses 9:8-17), remembering brings those who do that into relationship.
Amazement is often the feeling we have when we’re hanging so tightly onto the last thing we believe God did, we have difficulty believing the next, new thing God is doing.
Luke says, in 24:6-10, when the women followed the instruction of the two men in dazzling clothes to remember Jesus’ words, faith seized them and they ran to tell the apostles that Jesus was risen.
Amazement looks backwards, fixes its gaze there. Remembering reaches backwards and brings something forward into our present reality.
Remember Christmas? We say God is doing a new thing for the world; such a new thing, in fact, that God requires a new name, Emmanuel, God-With-Us.
Remember the Sermon on the Mount? We say God is teaching a new thing to the world.
Remember Maundy Thursday? We say God is feeding a new thing to the world, and establishing a new way to remain present in the world.
Remember Good Friday? We say God is finding a new way to conquer evil, as well as a new way to demonstrate the depth of God’s love for us.
So what is Easter? It’s God’s new way of saying, “I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.”
Will you be only amazed by that, or will you remember that, from the beginning, my heart’s desire is to keep creating you, to keep saving and freeing you and to keep on blessing?
Will you be only amazed by my promises, or will you remember them well enough so you can see and join me in living in, with and under them, as they keep unfolding in your life and in your world?
Will you be only amazed by my Son, Jesus’ wise teachings, wonderful works, and profound prayers, or will you remember to expect him, alive, to go ahead of you each day, everywhere you go, offering you new opportunities to complete the good work God has begun in you?
Will you be only amazed by these new things or will you remember them, bringing them forward to help you to comprehend and to celebrate whatever way cool way I dream up next to hold you, to forgive you, to love you and to lead you?
Will you be only amazed by one long ago Easter, or will you remember that Easter is more than an event; it’s more than a nice story designed to tidy up a messy Friday. Can you remember; Easter is a new relationship, a new identity, your new autobiography, alone and together, you are my Easter people.
So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!
Friday, April 06, 2007
Why Do We Call it Good Friday?
One of the biggest struggles I have in carrying out this pastoral role is dealing with beggars at the door. Someone who we’ve helped in the past came to the door yesterday. Just hearing the bell I knew it was a beggar. I even said that to the copier repair technician who was here at the time.
When I got to the door, the man said, “Can you give me $5, Reverend, I’m hungry?” “No,” I said, “can’t do it.” “But it’s your job to help.” “You want help,” I asked? “Okay, what’s your story?” “Whaddya mean,” he glared. I shot back, “Well, I’m guessin’ your mama didn’t birth no loser, so how’d you turn from that beautiful, proud boy into a loser?” Without pausing he said, “Well, I didn’t get into the NBA cuz I dropped outa school. Then I got shot here in my chest, see (he opened his shirt revealing a long scar). Then here in my head and I ain’t been right since, see,” (he took off his ball cap and pointed to a crescent suture line arching across his temple).
I wonder what it will take for me to see the truth. We’re all hungry; no, starving. We’ve all dropped out; each of us has lost a dream; and none of us, by ourselves, is right in the heart or in the head.
The One who we remember this day, the one whose blood and water flowed from his head and his heart, all down the cross is the same One who said things like:
• God sent the Son to save the world, not condemn it
• When you eat this bread, you’ll never be hungry again
• I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly
• If you drink from the waters I bring, you’ll never thirst
• No greater love exists than for someone to lay down life for another.
By grace, we stake our life, and bank our future on the One who took those words not only to heart, but to a heart pierced for us - while we were still losers. Before we even knew we were beggars at the door we are fed, watered, nourished, strengthened, by grace, and because of Jesus and his cross we belong to this loving God.
When we can trust grace, every day ending in “y,” especially toda“y” is a GOOD day!
When I got to the door, the man said, “Can you give me $5, Reverend, I’m hungry?” “No,” I said, “can’t do it.” “But it’s your job to help.” “You want help,” I asked? “Okay, what’s your story?” “Whaddya mean,” he glared. I shot back, “Well, I’m guessin’ your mama didn’t birth no loser, so how’d you turn from that beautiful, proud boy into a loser?” Without pausing he said, “Well, I didn’t get into the NBA cuz I dropped outa school. Then I got shot here in my chest, see (he opened his shirt revealing a long scar). Then here in my head and I ain’t been right since, see,” (he took off his ball cap and pointed to a crescent suture line arching across his temple).
I wonder what it will take for me to see the truth. We’re all hungry; no, starving. We’ve all dropped out; each of us has lost a dream; and none of us, by ourselves, is right in the heart or in the head.
The One who we remember this day, the one whose blood and water flowed from his head and his heart, all down the cross is the same One who said things like:
• God sent the Son to save the world, not condemn it
• When you eat this bread, you’ll never be hungry again
• I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly
• If you drink from the waters I bring, you’ll never thirst
• No greater love exists than for someone to lay down life for another.
By grace, we stake our life, and bank our future on the One who took those words not only to heart, but to a heart pierced for us - while we were still losers. Before we even knew we were beggars at the door we are fed, watered, nourished, strengthened, by grace, and because of Jesus and his cross we belong to this loving God.
When we can trust grace, every day ending in “y,” especially toda“y” is a GOOD day!
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Costly Recipe for Passionate Intimacies
Starbuck’s is my least favorite boutique. I’ve always been a Dunkin’ Donuts kind o’ guy. When forced by circumstances, usually a meeting, into Starbuck’s, I can’t seem to resist buying a biscotti, a long, hard, crunchy Italian cookie – best dunked in coffee. My grandmother made those often.
Among my most prized possessions is my grandmother’s biscotti recipe. She gave it to me 17 years ago, a year before she died. Fact is, it’s right here in my wallet. For reasons I can’t fathom, the last time I made biscotti, I stuck the recipe in my wallet instead of putting it back inside a cookbook where we keep other recipes from grandma. That was 5 years ago. The recipe has been in my wallet ever since then, and in the mean time, we’ve had only store bought biscotti.
Most of these are really bad. To keep pace with trends folks tinker with the recipe. They substitute margarine, not 5 sticks of pure butter. They add sesame seeds. Some add almond paste and almond pieces. A few bakeries put in, ahh, chocolate chips!
For all practical purposes, I don’t have grandma’s biscotti recipe. Having the recipe means gathering the ingredients. It requires measuring them out in the exact proportions. Owning the recipe means mixing the quantities together in the right order, using the appropriate utensils. Enjoying the recipe involves following the instructions for preparing and baking the dough. For as long as the recipe has been in my wallet, none of that has happened.
To many of us hold our Christian identity with the same ill regard I hold grandma’s recipe. It’s tucked safely away. We know exactly where it is. It’s tattered and worn not from over-use, but from abuse.
On his last night with his disciples, Jesus gave them an example and a commandment. Better words might be recipe or pattern, and an instruction or a direction.
Jesus always practiced what he preached. He walked his talk. He makes clear in this foot-washing both the high regard and the deep love he has for his disciples. He establishes in this meal the expansive, inclusive reach of his breaking-open and pouring-out love. He instructs us to do likewise.
Choose to love one another with a vulnerable love; love which is prone to be ignored, rejected, denied and even betrayed. It’s what happened with Jesus’ love. It can happen when we love that way, too. Despite that, as Jesus lives out that love, we see and experience a love persisting through to the end.
Both Jesus’ acted out language, and his spoken word, are in the plural. He performs what he does and speaks what he says to the community he’s called together. He knows how difficult it is for individuals, including himself, to love that way – vulnerably and persistently.
That’s why we do what we do here this evening. As those whom the Spirit of God has called together to receive this pattern, to practice this example, to hold this recipe in high regard, we keep these intimate rituals. We wash feet. We share a common meal. Both ground us in God’s own passionate, vulnerable, persistent and present love that gives us life, brings us freedom, blesses us, and makes us a blessing to and for the world.
You’d be hard pressed to call us a boutique church. That hasn’t, and shouldn’t, stop us from being bold enough to tinker with the recipe. Our tinkering, though, must always be relevant, never trendy. Our loving Jesus’ own in the world demands that we continue finding appropriate and truthful ways to keep shairn’ plenty good news!
When we faithfully execute that pattern, follow that example, serve up that recipe, everyone will know Whose disciples we are, because our love for one another, like Jesus’ love for us, stretches beyond our closest reach and extends passed our least costly embrace.
Among my most prized possessions is my grandmother’s biscotti recipe. She gave it to me 17 years ago, a year before she died. Fact is, it’s right here in my wallet. For reasons I can’t fathom, the last time I made biscotti, I stuck the recipe in my wallet instead of putting it back inside a cookbook where we keep other recipes from grandma. That was 5 years ago. The recipe has been in my wallet ever since then, and in the mean time, we’ve had only store bought biscotti.
Most of these are really bad. To keep pace with trends folks tinker with the recipe. They substitute margarine, not 5 sticks of pure butter. They add sesame seeds. Some add almond paste and almond pieces. A few bakeries put in, ahh, chocolate chips!
For all practical purposes, I don’t have grandma’s biscotti recipe. Having the recipe means gathering the ingredients. It requires measuring them out in the exact proportions. Owning the recipe means mixing the quantities together in the right order, using the appropriate utensils. Enjoying the recipe involves following the instructions for preparing and baking the dough. For as long as the recipe has been in my wallet, none of that has happened.
To many of us hold our Christian identity with the same ill regard I hold grandma’s recipe. It’s tucked safely away. We know exactly where it is. It’s tattered and worn not from over-use, but from abuse.
On his last night with his disciples, Jesus gave them an example and a commandment. Better words might be recipe or pattern, and an instruction or a direction.
Jesus always practiced what he preached. He walked his talk. He makes clear in this foot-washing both the high regard and the deep love he has for his disciples. He establishes in this meal the expansive, inclusive reach of his breaking-open and pouring-out love. He instructs us to do likewise.
Choose to love one another with a vulnerable love; love which is prone to be ignored, rejected, denied and even betrayed. It’s what happened with Jesus’ love. It can happen when we love that way, too. Despite that, as Jesus lives out that love, we see and experience a love persisting through to the end.
Both Jesus’ acted out language, and his spoken word, are in the plural. He performs what he does and speaks what he says to the community he’s called together. He knows how difficult it is for individuals, including himself, to love that way – vulnerably and persistently.
That’s why we do what we do here this evening. As those whom the Spirit of God has called together to receive this pattern, to practice this example, to hold this recipe in high regard, we keep these intimate rituals. We wash feet. We share a common meal. Both ground us in God’s own passionate, vulnerable, persistent and present love that gives us life, brings us freedom, blesses us, and makes us a blessing to and for the world.
You’d be hard pressed to call us a boutique church. That hasn’t, and shouldn’t, stop us from being bold enough to tinker with the recipe. Our tinkering, though, must always be relevant, never trendy. Our loving Jesus’ own in the world demands that we continue finding appropriate and truthful ways to keep shairn’ plenty good news!
When we faithfully execute that pattern, follow that example, serve up that recipe, everyone will know Whose disciples we are, because our love for one another, like Jesus’ love for us, stretches beyond our closest reach and extends passed our least costly embrace.
Jesus’ Colorful Passion – On a Stage Near YOU!
Every time someone gets up to proclaim the scriptures at worship lately, I’m reminded that a burglar ripped off our microphone, two cymbals, and a cymbal stand. I think they’re bad people.
Today I heard that our neighbor was robbed at gunpoint while working, during the middle of the day, in his tax office six blocks from here. I think that must have been a bad actor.
Now for sure, you can help me shift my attitude. In fact, I probably can’t do that without you.
But what I’m talking about now is something different. See, there are no bad people in this story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and execution (John 18-19). Everybody inside the story, the naïve, lazy disciples, the betraying Judas, the Temple police, the priests who sent them, even Pilate, all of them were acting with integrity – much like Jesus. The difference is, Jesus acted out of both integrity and humility. He not only moved truthfully, as he understood truth to be; he is grounded – that’s what humble means – he was grounded in God’s truth
These other folks acted true to character, but they were grounded in something other than the unfolding story of God’s way of freeing them from oppression and injustice. They were convinced that they were the authors and directors, rather than actors in the story authored and directed by God.
Everyday, we, like they, have many opportunities to portray our true colors. By what we say and do, how we decide and judge, who we show ourselves to be – we display our true colors. We’re either truthfully acting in the ground of God’s story, or we’re bit players in some other powers’ fantasy.
Today I heard that our neighbor was robbed at gunpoint while working, during the middle of the day, in his tax office six blocks from here. I think that must have been a bad actor.
Now for sure, you can help me shift my attitude. In fact, I probably can’t do that without you.
But what I’m talking about now is something different. See, there are no bad people in this story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and execution (John 18-19). Everybody inside the story, the naïve, lazy disciples, the betraying Judas, the Temple police, the priests who sent them, even Pilate, all of them were acting with integrity – much like Jesus. The difference is, Jesus acted out of both integrity and humility. He not only moved truthfully, as he understood truth to be; he is grounded – that’s what humble means – he was grounded in God’s truth
These other folks acted true to character, but they were grounded in something other than the unfolding story of God’s way of freeing them from oppression and injustice. They were convinced that they were the authors and directors, rather than actors in the story authored and directed by God.
Everyday, we, like they, have many opportunities to portray our true colors. By what we say and do, how we decide and judge, who we show ourselves to be – we display our true colors. We’re either truthfully acting in the ground of God’s story, or we’re bit players in some other powers’ fantasy.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Jesus, MBA
There’s money all over the place in Holy Week. It begins with Jesus overturning the money changers’ tables and scattering money all over the floor in the Temple. In the middle is the extravagance of the woman who anoints Jesus, and the cash on the barrel Judas negotiates to hand Jesus over. At the end, those same silver pieces come crashing back onto the Temple floor.
It’s a good thing that God doesn’t manage the wealth of grace the way we manage money. That’s what caught Jesus’ eye about this woman, and sent the onlookers into frenzy. The woman managed her expensive oil in virtually the same way God manages the wealth of God’s grace. She was extravagant with it. She lavished it for no apparent reason.
We don’t run our banks, our savings and checking accounts, our IRA’s, our 401 K’s, our money market funds, our mutual funds, or our stock portfolios that way at all. But that’s not the worst of it.
We’ve turned our time, our attention, our energy, our talents and everything we can manage to count, measure, calculate, tabulate, buy, or sell into a commodity. With the best of intentions, we even talk about children as our most precious resource. We always want to know the return on investment. We’re always looking to weigh the risk against the gain.
God, in Jesus, invites us into another way of reconciling accounts. Simply receive the precious gift of God’s outpouring love with open hands. Don’t hang onto it. Let it splash over those closest to you. They are as deserving and desirous of God’s generosity as you are.
It’s a good thing that God doesn’t manage the wealth of grace the way we manage money. That’s what caught Jesus’ eye about this woman, and sent the onlookers into frenzy. The woman managed her expensive oil in virtually the same way God manages the wealth of God’s grace. She was extravagant with it. She lavished it for no apparent reason.
We don’t run our banks, our savings and checking accounts, our IRA’s, our 401 K’s, our money market funds, our mutual funds, or our stock portfolios that way at all. But that’s not the worst of it.
We’ve turned our time, our attention, our energy, our talents and everything we can manage to count, measure, calculate, tabulate, buy, or sell into a commodity. With the best of intentions, we even talk about children as our most precious resource. We always want to know the return on investment. We’re always looking to weigh the risk against the gain.
God, in Jesus, invites us into another way of reconciling accounts. Simply receive the precious gift of God’s outpouring love with open hands. Don’t hang onto it. Let it splash over those closest to you. They are as deserving and desirous of God’s generosity as you are.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Christ’s Passion: Cliché or Cachet?
There’s a feature on my writing software that I can’t live without. Depending upon your computer’s age and the software it runs you may have this as well. Inside the spell-check tool is both a grammar checker and a reading analysis. My software does these tasks in two ways. One is clicking on the icon marked, ABC. The other is to set a feature that underlines misspelled words in red, as well as underlining grammatical problems in green, while I’m typing.
The program says the grammatical mistake I make most often is writing passive sentences. Sales and marketing folks, sports writers, fund-raising experts and some English teachers, say that passive sentences are boring. They lack zip. They’re usually lengthier than sentences using active verbs. This more dynamic style engages a different part of the readers’ and hearers’ brains. Sentences with active verbs chemically stimulate more dramatic reactions and responses from readers and hearers.
Writing often this week, for the worship folder, the newsletter and the blog, all this was on my mind while studying Philippians 2:5-11 (held to be an ancient baptismal hymn) and Luke 23:1-49 (a portion of Jesus’ passion). I was struck by different thoughts and feelings when hearing Luke’s story-telling approach to the last days of Jesus, in contrast to the more poetic approach Paul uses when he includes this hymn in his letter. Now that’s no great insight. A storyteller’s style differs, almost by definition, from a poet’s or a song-writer’s method of writing and composing.
The feelings I’m talking about lie deeper than the obvious. Both Luke and Paul’s hymn writer want to provide detail about the same event, the death of Jesus. Luke, though, puts the thoughts and feelings of Jesus in the mouth of Jesus. Once we move past the entry into Jerusalem, where Jesus is clearly in command, we don’t hear much from Jesus himself on Thursday and Friday.
The momentum in Luke’s account, the way he moves the death plot forward, is done by himself as narrator, or by means of his “reporting” the words and feelings of secondary players. Looking at the details, time-lines, and reactions in Luke’s telling makes Jesus seem like a passive character in the grandest adventure of his own story.
The hymn, on the other hand, offers insights that are inferred or surmised from the composer’s thoughts about Jesus in the midst of these events. The composer, then, infuses these reflections onto and into Jesus.
Even though this style has a definite “outside / in” quality, the result is anything but that. Look at how powerful, in control, and decisive the hymn’s Jesus sounds; He:
• did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited
• emptied himself
• took the form of a slave
• humbled himself
• obeyed to the point of death, even death on a cross.
See the difference? The hymn’s Jesus doesn’t look as much like a victim. The hymn’s Jesus is an active agent.
The hymn’s Jesus looks much more like the Good Shepherd Jesus we hear in John 10:14-18: "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father." (The Message).
The hymn helps us see Jesus amidst this death-plot, not as the victim of the wolf, but as the caretaker, guarantor of the sheep’s well-being. The hymn has something to say to the sheep, as well. At the name of Jesus:
• we should bend our knees
• our tongues should confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of the Father. (Not should, as in command, should as in what logical alternative is there?)
Why am I telling you all this? Because what Paul wrote, what the Bible says is: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)
Sometimes, when somebody like me tries to break open a text for folks like you, we both wind up confused. Of course, I think I’m doing a good job when I show you the difference between a bible story and a bible hymn. But it can’t end there. If I leave you thinking that once we’ve sliced and diced these pages what we’re about is only literary criticism, I’ve done you a disservice. Like as not, I’ve committed a sin (missed the mark).
See, these aren’t just words and stories, parables and songs, proverbs and folktales about God. These aren’t even simply the trustworthy accounts of long ago folks’ experiences with God. These are a living God’s word spoken to us here and now.
God means for God’s presence in these words to inflame us and to stir up in us a living, active response to what this God is saying to us in this time and place - in, with, and under these words. As your pastor I want this understanding to be on your minds, in your hearts, at your finger tips, always. I want that for you and for us, especially this week, as together we consider how we will respond to what God does for us, and for the world, by means of Jesus and his cross.
It’s time to get that sorry picture Mel Gibson painted off your radar screen. Of course Jesus suffered, suffered greatly. Of course Jesus’ suffering is for us, that is, has a personal and eternal impact, or effect on us.
Don’t you think that if God thought it important for us to have a picture of the depth and level of Jesus’ physical torture, God’s evangelists would have done that painting? The evangelists don’t avoid the pain and suffering. Neither do they dwell on it. As they tell it, as this early composer sang about it, it’s neither necessary nor sufficient to get stuck in that portrait.
From the beginning, God has rejected revenge. Just prior to expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, for disobedience – that is, not listening to God, look at what God did. God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them. (Genesis 3:21, The Message).
It’s not completely right to say we caused that to happen. It’s not accurate to say God needed that to happen to satisfy grievances God had, or has, against us.
What’s truthful to say, and to see, is this. God allowed this to happen. Jesus chose, as in willingly agreed to go along with what God was allowing. God moved this way for us, so we might turn around and begin to live, and move, and have our being inside this same God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness, which sets us free in Jesus.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. That’s the overriding focus of this Holy Week. That’s what we’ll ponder together on Maundy Thursday, as we wash feet then share bread and wine. That’s what we’ll speak to God for, and listen to God say, on Good Friday.
Here’s what that means, not just for two days out of the year, but for everyday that we say we want to walk as disciples in the footsteps of Jesus and the God who loves him.
• What happens when God’s will is the last thing on your mind and seldom penetrates your heart? When your talk is a cliché and your walk has no cachet.
• What goes on in your life when your relationship with God lacks integrity?
• What overwhelms a country when its citizens believe God blesses them to the exclusion of everyone else?
• What occurs in your world when some crowd catches you up and you’re dragged off course?
• What are the everyday consequences when you’re bought off, for some modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver?
• What goes down when your religion oppresses and condemns other children of God, in the name of God?
The God who loves Jesus, the Jesus who loves God, tell us over and over, how deeply God loves. They show us, over and over, what lengths God goes, willingly, to embrace passionately even the most raggedy characters our biblical pages describe.
Surely, someone in here looks enough like you to move you to respond to this living God with the loving word God desires to hear from each of us this day: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! (Luke 19:37-38)
The program says the grammatical mistake I make most often is writing passive sentences. Sales and marketing folks, sports writers, fund-raising experts and some English teachers, say that passive sentences are boring. They lack zip. They’re usually lengthier than sentences using active verbs. This more dynamic style engages a different part of the readers’ and hearers’ brains. Sentences with active verbs chemically stimulate more dramatic reactions and responses from readers and hearers.
Writing often this week, for the worship folder, the newsletter and the blog, all this was on my mind while studying Philippians 2:5-11 (held to be an ancient baptismal hymn) and Luke 23:1-49 (a portion of Jesus’ passion). I was struck by different thoughts and feelings when hearing Luke’s story-telling approach to the last days of Jesus, in contrast to the more poetic approach Paul uses when he includes this hymn in his letter. Now that’s no great insight. A storyteller’s style differs, almost by definition, from a poet’s or a song-writer’s method of writing and composing.
The feelings I’m talking about lie deeper than the obvious. Both Luke and Paul’s hymn writer want to provide detail about the same event, the death of Jesus. Luke, though, puts the thoughts and feelings of Jesus in the mouth of Jesus. Once we move past the entry into Jerusalem, where Jesus is clearly in command, we don’t hear much from Jesus himself on Thursday and Friday.
The momentum in Luke’s account, the way he moves the death plot forward, is done by himself as narrator, or by means of his “reporting” the words and feelings of secondary players. Looking at the details, time-lines, and reactions in Luke’s telling makes Jesus seem like a passive character in the grandest adventure of his own story.
The hymn, on the other hand, offers insights that are inferred or surmised from the composer’s thoughts about Jesus in the midst of these events. The composer, then, infuses these reflections onto and into Jesus.
Even though this style has a definite “outside / in” quality, the result is anything but that. Look at how powerful, in control, and decisive the hymn’s Jesus sounds; He:
• did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited
• emptied himself
• took the form of a slave
• humbled himself
• obeyed to the point of death, even death on a cross.
See the difference? The hymn’s Jesus doesn’t look as much like a victim. The hymn’s Jesus is an active agent.
The hymn’s Jesus looks much more like the Good Shepherd Jesus we hear in John 10:14-18: "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father." (The Message).
The hymn helps us see Jesus amidst this death-plot, not as the victim of the wolf, but as the caretaker, guarantor of the sheep’s well-being. The hymn has something to say to the sheep, as well. At the name of Jesus:
• we should bend our knees
• our tongues should confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of the Father. (Not should, as in command, should as in what logical alternative is there?)
Why am I telling you all this? Because what Paul wrote, what the Bible says is: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)
Sometimes, when somebody like me tries to break open a text for folks like you, we both wind up confused. Of course, I think I’m doing a good job when I show you the difference between a bible story and a bible hymn. But it can’t end there. If I leave you thinking that once we’ve sliced and diced these pages what we’re about is only literary criticism, I’ve done you a disservice. Like as not, I’ve committed a sin (missed the mark).
See, these aren’t just words and stories, parables and songs, proverbs and folktales about God. These aren’t even simply the trustworthy accounts of long ago folks’ experiences with God. These are a living God’s word spoken to us here and now.
God means for God’s presence in these words to inflame us and to stir up in us a living, active response to what this God is saying to us in this time and place - in, with, and under these words. As your pastor I want this understanding to be on your minds, in your hearts, at your finger tips, always. I want that for you and for us, especially this week, as together we consider how we will respond to what God does for us, and for the world, by means of Jesus and his cross.
It’s time to get that sorry picture Mel Gibson painted off your radar screen. Of course Jesus suffered, suffered greatly. Of course Jesus’ suffering is for us, that is, has a personal and eternal impact, or effect on us.
Don’t you think that if God thought it important for us to have a picture of the depth and level of Jesus’ physical torture, God’s evangelists would have done that painting? The evangelists don’t avoid the pain and suffering. Neither do they dwell on it. As they tell it, as this early composer sang about it, it’s neither necessary nor sufficient to get stuck in that portrait.
From the beginning, God has rejected revenge. Just prior to expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, for disobedience – that is, not listening to God, look at what God did. God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them. (Genesis 3:21, The Message).
It’s not completely right to say we caused that to happen. It’s not accurate to say God needed that to happen to satisfy grievances God had, or has, against us.
What’s truthful to say, and to see, is this. God allowed this to happen. Jesus chose, as in willingly agreed to go along with what God was allowing. God moved this way for us, so we might turn around and begin to live, and move, and have our being inside this same God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness, which sets us free in Jesus.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. That’s the overriding focus of this Holy Week. That’s what we’ll ponder together on Maundy Thursday, as we wash feet then share bread and wine. That’s what we’ll speak to God for, and listen to God say, on Good Friday.
Here’s what that means, not just for two days out of the year, but for everyday that we say we want to walk as disciples in the footsteps of Jesus and the God who loves him.
• What happens when God’s will is the last thing on your mind and seldom penetrates your heart? When your talk is a cliché and your walk has no cachet.
• What goes on in your life when your relationship with God lacks integrity?
• What overwhelms a country when its citizens believe God blesses them to the exclusion of everyone else?
• What occurs in your world when some crowd catches you up and you’re dragged off course?
• What are the everyday consequences when you’re bought off, for some modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver?
• What goes down when your religion oppresses and condemns other children of God, in the name of God?
The God who loves Jesus, the Jesus who loves God, tell us over and over, how deeply God loves. They show us, over and over, what lengths God goes, willingly, to embrace passionately even the most raggedy characters our biblical pages describe.
Surely, someone in here looks enough like you to move you to respond to this living God with the loving word God desires to hear from each of us this day: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! (Luke 19:37-38)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
