Picking the Lock on Heaven's Door

In the late 16^th and early 17^th Century, William Camden wrote significant historical and antiquities works about Great Britain.  His book Remains Concerning Britain contains essays and shorter works related to his larger Britania.  It contains poems, poem fragments, and proverbs that he had collected from his study of British history.  It includes this epitaph of a Locksmith, “A zealous locksmith died of late/And did arrive at heaven’s gate,/He stood without and would not knock,/Because he meant to pick the lock.” 

            I read things like that and have to wonder about the character of the person they were talking about.  Was this something he said frequently—“I’m not knocking on heaven’s door; I’m picking the lock”?  Did people think he was just that good of a locksmith?  Or that arrogant?  Or did they think that the only way he was getting in is by making his own way in?  There’s no way to know now. 

            I do wonder how many people think they will have to pick the lock on heaven’s gate.  Many people believe that salvation is a product of one’s goodness, capacity to follow the rules, record of good works, or capacity for breaking and entering (undetected of course).  The biblical witness to salvation recognizes that salvation comes by God’s grace and God’s grace alone.  It is not the result of our report card, citizenship record, credit report, or permanent file.  God chooses to forgive and grant access to God to all people because God has designed us for relationship with God’s self.

            One way to understand worship is that it’s a dress rehearsal for eternity.  The people of God gathered around the throne of God praising and worshiping God.  If we imagine worship in this way, are there people who believe that they must pick the lock to get in?  When we come to worship with the conscious awareness that we are there by God’s grace alone the sense that some people have a place of honor on the basis of their service, generosity, or purity dies away.  All of us come to worship because God has thrown open the doors and allows us to come.  The only place of honor in worship belongs to God. 

Thanks for Whoever

            Thanks to whoever . . . someone left a bunch of goodies for a movie night we had in the summer of 2015.  They labeled it “movie night” but didn’t sign it.  Handwriting analysis has proved inconclusive. It got me thinking about all the many people who do things for us around church that we do not thank often enough.

            Thanks to whoever . . . goes around and checks the Sunday School roles each week.  I know who you are but I grateful you do what you do. 

            Thanks to whoever . . . makes the prayer shawls.  I also know who you are and know you don’t do it for the recognition.  They meant a lot to the people who receive them.

            Thanks to whoever . . . gets the communion ready each Sunday morning and clean up communion at the end of the day.  Communion is the most important part of our worship service.  It does not materialize out of thin air.

            Thanks to whoever . . . labels, folds and prepares the newsletters for mailing.  “The Friend Bunch” really are a bunch of friends who brighten our week in more ways than one.

            Thanks to whoever . . . runs the TV ministries, posts the recording to Vimeo and gets it out on our website, prepares the DVDs and sends them to the Beloveds.  It stretch the reach of God’s good news.

            Thanks to whoever . . . sharpens the pencils and refills the offering envelopes. 

            Thanks to whoever . . . sorts and puts back up the library books.  We have the best maintained church library anywhere.

            Thanks to whoever . . . assembles the children’s packets for Sunday morning.

            Thanks to whoever . . . greets people on Sunday morning making sure that people feel welcome here. 

            It’s always a risk when you start thanking people because invariably you leave someone out.  There are many, many more people to thank.  Lots of people serve in big and small ways.  But, please know that your church family is grateful for all that you do.  We are the church, together. 

Would you Pray for Me

            As a young pastor in Irving, I wen tot see one of my members in the hospital.  She was suffering from dementia and other physical problems.  The visit was short.  She couldn’t say much.  I asked her if I could do anything for her.  She asked for prayer.  I took hold of her hand and said things that I had said several times before (I was young but visiting hospitals had already become somewhat routine).  After we said Amen, I asked if there was anything else I could do for her.  She asked for water and I helped her take a few sips of water.  And one last time I asked if she needed anything, she asked for prayer.  My initial instinct was to blame her dementia.  She had forgotten that we had prayed just a couple of minutes earlier, but as I bowed my head, I felt something tap my spiritual shoulder and say, “really pray this time.”  I had “prayed” with her but had not prayed with her.  And there is a difference.

            I think about that often when I find myself or others simply going through the motions of worship.  It’s easy thing to do.  Still, there’s a difference between “going to worship” and actually worshipping.  We can be physically presence and mentally or spiritually somewhere else.  Yet, God continues to call us into worship.  Here I have some suggestions about ways to enter into worship.

           

1.      Read the biblical texts that are the focus for worship before you arrive.  Make notes or thoughts about what the texts mean to you. 

2.       When you sit down, find a way to sit quietly and pray.  You may want to take time to pray the Lord’s prayer and take time between each line to think and reflect on it’s meaning.

3.      As you sing, contemplate the words of the lyrics.

4.      As you wait for communion to be served, think about your favorite story from the Gospels.  Imagine what draws you to Jesus. 

Once a year, I think all Christians should visit a worship service that is different than their own.  Rather than thinking about what you like or dislike or even how you are greeted and seated.  Simply go with your heart open to God’s presence.  Sometimes this can be enough to draw us out of familiar patterns.  Every now and again, each of us needs a tap on the spiritual shoulder that says, “Really pray this time” Or “Really worship this time.”  Indeed, let’s really worship this Sunday. 

Debts and Debtors

People often ask if I think we should say, “debts/debtors,” “sins/sinned against us,” or “trespasses/those who’ve trespassed against us” whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  Short answer—debts/debtors.  Longer answer—debts and debtors is the language actually used in the earliest Greek manuscripts we have.  For Jesus it wasn’t just a metaphor.  He understood the crushing load of debt could mean time in prison (debtors prison) or some form of enslavement.  Jesus prayed for real release from actual debt.  More importantly, we are indebted to God for more than our forgiveness of sins.  God certainly does forgive our sins, but we owe God so much more.  We are indebted to God for the air we breathe, every heart beat, the gravity that keeps us on the ground, the food we eat.  In short, we owe God everything. 

       So, I believe in praying “debts” and “debtors.”  I say this with one really large caveat:  When we pray for God to forgive our debts we need to be thinking more broadly about what we mean.  If we say “debts” but mean “sins” the Jesus’s meaning gets truncated. 

      When we say, “forgive us our debts” and mean “forgive us our sins” we turn our “sins” into “debts.”  This creates a transactional view of Christ’s death on the cross.  It goes something like this:  the righteousness of God demanded a payment for our sins; God’s love provided that payment in the form of Jesus’s death on the cross. There was a hymn I sang growing up that said, “I had a debt I could not pay, He paid the debt He did not owe, I needed someone to wash my sins away.”   Or another one much more familiar, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.  Sin had left as crimson stain.  He washed it white as snow.”  The belief is Jesus made a payment to secure my forgiveness.   This is a popular understanding of atonement. 

      When the New Testament uses the word “debts” it means debts—money or obligation owed.  When the New Testament speaks of debtors it does so in financial terms.  The sin=debts equation portrays God as a somewhat ruthless loan shark demanding blood as payment.  When we think of Jesus’s death on the cross as payment for our sin we portray God in an ugly way.  Not really “ the Lord, the Lord gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love . . . forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7).  This description of God—which is the most often repeated description of God in the Hebrew Bible—was made before the death of Christ on the cross.  

Religion and Violence

      There were a couple of weeks in the early part of 2015 that I found both confusing and heartbreaking. On February 14-15 a series of shootings took place in Copenhagen.  An attack at a Free Speech rally at café injuring three police officers and killing one person, the shooting of a Jewish man and a guard at a synagogue and then the shooting of the suspect on the morning of the 15^th left many grieving and anxious.  The suspected shooter’s religious ideology seems to be part though not all of the cause.  Also on Sunday, Jihadists cruelly beheaded 21 Coptic Christians abducted from Libya last month.  On Monday, a grand jury in North Carolina indicted Craig Hicks with murder charges.  Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salah, young students in the Chapel Hill area, were shot and killed last Tuesday.  The immediate cause of the shootings appears to have been a parking dispute.  However, Hicks had expressed anti-religious sentiment and the victims were Muslim. 

      In each of these cases religion plays a role, but does not account for the whole of people’s motivations.  As people of faith, how do we respond?  Are we so far removed from the places effected that we have no business inserting ourselves?  Is it acceptable for us to be more concerned with the plight of fellow Christians than we are with people of other faiths?  These questions and so many other haunt me.  I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of violence and religion.  But, as I read the news reports and praying for the situations, I tried to keep these things in mind:         

      We are talking about real human beings.  The people who have been killed and the people who killed them have names, personalities, families, and histories.  I believe we must be careful not to turn victims into pawns in our favorite arguments. I have searched for years for ways to talk about the issues that affect people’s lives without diminishing people’s lives into issues.  I have failed more often than I have succeeded.  I continue to believe that people’s lives have integrity and we need to protect that integrity with our speech as much as we protect the lives with our actions.

      Motives are more complicated than we can sort out.  Religion or anti-religious ideologies are rarely the sole cause for violence.  The experiences of scarcity, powerlessness, victimization, and geo-political realities are just a few of the other contributing factors that lead to violent actions.

      Apathy is not an option nor is misguided, partially informed action.  We have learned the lesson time and again that that “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing” (John Stuart Mill in an Address before Students at St. Andrews).  The fuller context of that quotation emphasizes that actions need to follow careful assessment of the situations before us.  History is also full of tragic examples where good people did the wrong thing because they acted without adequate understanding. 

      For now, I pray for the strength to stay engaged and not turn away.  I pray that God will form me into a person who seeks reconciliation.  Christ died in order to tear down the dividing wall of hostility may we live in such a way that Christ’s purposes are manifest in us. 

Passages Relevant Today

2Speak unto the children of Tejas, and say unto them, If any man or women possessing the license of concealed handgun of you bring a weapon carry in the open, ye shall bring your offering of weapons of the carry in the open to the priest upon crossing the threshold. 3 If his offering be of  automatic of the full or of the semite tribe, let him offer it without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. 4 And he shall immerse it fully in the basin of water thrice;. 5 And he shall remove the ammunition  before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the powder of black, and sprinkle the powder of black  round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. 6 And he shall disassemble the carry in the open weapon. 7 And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put a basin with water upon the altar,  8 And the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall lay the parts in order in the water in the basin  which is upon the altar: 9 But his inwards and barrel shall he wash in water: and the priest shall wash all on the altar, to be a soaked  sacrifice, an offering made by water, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. (Hesitations 9:2-9)

15 And thou shalt make the breast-vest of caution with cunning work for the bearer of carry in the open weapons; of magenta, of lavender, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it. 16 Foursquare it shall be being doubled; a span shall be the length thereof, and a span shall be the breadth thereof. 17 And thou shalt set in it settings of blossoms, even four rows of blossoms: the first row shall be a cherry, a rose, and an iris: this shall be the first row. 18 And the second row shall be a lilly, a daisy, and a pansy. 19 And the third row a sunflower, a gardenia, and a violet. 20 And the fourth row a chrysanthemum, and a poppy, and a carnation: they shall be set in webbing in their inclosings. 21 And the blossoms shall be with the names of the children of the bunch of Brady, six, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the six children. 22 And thou shalt make upon the breastplate chains at the ends of wreathen work of pure silk. And the bearer of the weapons to carry in the open shall where the breast-vest during all the time that they are in the tabernacle.  (Hesitations 9:15-21)

 

Speeches Address Audiences Not Topics

Lloyd Bitzer in his journal article, "The Rhetorical Situation" (Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1.1 1963, p. 3) outlined . . . well he outlined exactly what the title says: what makes a sitiuation rhetorical.  He explained that it takes three things:

1.  Exiegence--a situation in the world that needs to change.

2.  Audience--a group of people who are able to make change happen.

3.  Constraints--Resources and limitations available with regard to the means of persuading the audience.  

The point being that speeches--which are the original rhetorical act--come into being because of a situation in the world of people and events.  Speeches are meant to create change.  Speeches do not change topics . . . unless, of course, you've done ground breaking research and that's what the speech is about.  People have the will and capacity to change and people make up the audience of the rhetorical situation.  Yet, so often speakers begin preparing speeches thinking about what they are going to say (topic) rather than who they are talking to and what the needs of the situation are.

Some Questions Speakers Should Ask Before Preparing Speech Content

1.  Demographic questions:  Who are they? What's their age and age range?  What's their ethnicity or ethicities?  What is their educational background?  MOST IMPORTANTLY:  What do they have in common with each other?  What makes them an audience?  In the process of answering that question, you may discover you have more than one audience in the same room.

2.  Who are you to them?  Do you have a certain built-in authority that the audience acknowledges?  Are you practically unknown to them and will have to do some work to introduce yourself to them?  (BTW, never underestimate the value of a good introduction of the speaker).  

3.  What language and understanding resources are and are not available to the audience?  Frequently speakers speak past audiences by using technical language, abbreviations, and verbal shortcuts that they understand but the audience may not.  Fred Craddock, who taught generations of preachers how to preach, once said, "Your congregation is willing to run with you, but you have to remember that you have a 10-hour head start."  Applying that to speeches in general, I would say you better know how big your head start is on the audience. In many cases, the speaker has a head-start of a few years, a degree or two, and professional competence. There will be things you have to explain in order to help an audience run with you.  A lot of misunderstanding can be avoided if speakers begin by defining their terms.  

  

4.  How do they feel emotionally about the situation that they're in?  Just as people come from their own frame of reference intellectually they also come from their own frame of reference emotionally.  Are they happy?  Nervous? Grieving? Confused? Frustrated? Angry?  Some speeches miss their audience because the speaker misunderstands or responds poorly or completely ignores the emotional front of the audience.

There are other questions to consider and these questions are preliminary.  However, speech preparation that begins by addressing the topic rather than the audience has a greater potential to miss the mark than a speech that begins by assessing the situation into which a speech is spoken.  As speakers begin preparing their speech they should remember--speeches address audiences not topics.  

Mercy Me makes Spiritual Pizza

I love pizza, even bad pizza.  That's neither a confession nor a badge of honor.  That's because pizza isn't really junk food and it isn't really health food.  Many of the things that come on a pizza are good for you.  I suspect that most things that come on a pizza are good for you in moderation.  The problems with pizza--and I'm saying this as someone who is definitely not a nutritionist--are proportion and portion.  Meat and cheese and fat are good for us in small amounts.  Tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, mushrooms and olives are good for us, but we probably need to eat larger amounts of the vegetables than the meats and cheeses.  I suspect that the meat/cheese to vegetable ratio on most of the pizzas I eat are reversed from where they should be to truly be healthy.  I don't know what to do with the crust at this point, but since bread has become such a bad thing in pop-diets, I'm guessing it falls into the "too much of a good thing" category.  It's a proportion issue.  The other problem with pizza--and it's more my problem than the pizza's--is portion.  I can and have put down a lot of pizza at one time.  I start eating and I can't stop.  

I think some things in American popular Christianity are spiritual pizzas--some imbalances in the ratios and real problems if consumed to excess.  I think that MercyMe's song "Flawless" is a good example. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9b/5c/11/9b5c1127287783ef30b8c016e60720bf.jpg

The theology of the song lyrics is typical of a particular approach to grace and salvation.  It says that people are incapable of saving themselves through their own efforts no matter how hard we try.  The singer refers to himself as a "wretch."  The theology quite self-consciously evokes John Newton's "Amazing Grace" and the song quotes both the lyrics and melodyJulia Johnston's "Marvelous Grace of Our Loving Lord." (BTW, in the old 1976 Baptist Hymnal I sang from growing up, these songs were right next to each other and often sung as a medley).  God's grace is understood as God's willingness to forgive us though we do not deserve it.  Grace is unearned favor.  This is meat and cheese theological interpretation of the cross: because Jesus died on the cross for our sins God no longer counts our sins against us.  We are flawless.  

I believe this to be true.  Indeed, when it comes time for me to leave this earth, I believe I will step out into eternity on this promise.  Lately I've been using the benediction from the end of Jude where it declares that Christ is able to "keep you from falling and present you before God's glorious presence without fault and with great joy." Yet, like the pizza analogy I believe we disproportionately emphasize the cross as the locus of our forgiveness and neglect the "vegetables."  The cross is also our model for how to live.  Those who receive Christ must take up their cross and follow Christ.  We are called to have the mind of Christ who was "obedient unto death, even death on the cross." This interpretation of the cross is often missing or insufficiently expressed in popular Christian spirituality--Contemporary Christian music, literature and preaching.  Like the vegetables on a pizza, it's there, but there needs to be a lot more of it to be considered healthy.  

I believe the video to this song--which I enjoyed--has a theological "flaw." In the video, various people who have aspects of their lives that some might regard as flaws are shown--a child with autism, two children with down syndrome, a woman who has been unable to grow hair since she was a child, a woman born without a right arm.  Along with these people some of the other characters are identified with things we might more readily consider sin--an out of balance worklife, failing to be a spiritual leader in the home, a past full of regrets.  And the song's lyrics are quite explictly about our status as sinners saved by grace. I have made the mistake of viewing personal sins/spiritual shortcomings and physical/biological characteristics in the same light.  But, we should not do that.  As Christians we cannot imply that illnesses or physical characteristics that create challenges are on par with sin.  It's too easy to go from that to suggesting that they result from sin.  I get where MercyMe is going.  In the eyes of God, the child with down syndrome is flawless and our own perspective needs to adjust to see others with the eyes of God.  That's a good message, but I think it's a message for a different song and a different video.  

Even though I think "Flawless" is spiritual pizza, I really like pizza--and I really like that pizza.  So, maybe I'll have a slice, eat in moderation, and be sure to have a healthier salad along with it.  

Sermon Sunday, June 21, 2015

Illusion of Invincibility
Genesis 6:9-22
These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of cypressb wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16 Make a roofc for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

When I was in Elementary School, my principal was Mr. Jack Herring.  He had been at Johnston Elementary for years and he was loved.  Well I was a part of a group of boys that was threatening to scuffle with another group of boys.  It was pre-teen posturing.  And, I’ll be quick to add, “They started it.”  Needless to say a teacher intercepted the mounting tensions after school and directed us to visit Mr. Herring in his office . . . immediately . . . and we went.  Mr. Herring sat behind his large wooden desk, he heard the indictment of our broo-haha.  He reached down and slid open one of the wooden draws of his wooden desk, and he pulled out a paddle.  It was large and decorated and it looked to unwieldy to be taken seriously.  He said this is one of my paddles.  You know, I don’t like using this paddle.  It was a gift.  But it’s too heavy to really swing.  Kind of hurts my hand.  Then he reached down into his drawer and pulled  out a thin paddle, worn smooth with age, it had athletic taped wrapped around one end, “No,” he said holding the paddle in his hand, “This is the one I prefer.  It’s light enough to swing but solid enough to sting.”   He laid that paddle down on the desk.  He reached down and pulled out another and said, “I used to use this one but it cracked.”  He pulled out a couple more, holding each one, surveying its size, weight, velocity, grip.  He laid each one side-by-side on his desk and said finally, “Boys, I don’t want to use any of these paddles.  But I will if I have to.  Do you think I have to use one of these paddles today?”  Silently we shook our heads, “No.” “Good, don’t make me use them then.”  Then he told us to leave his office.  That was the end of the scuffling. 

Whenever I have to deal with a story like God sending a flood to wipe out the majority of humanity in order to start over again, or ordering certain people executed because they didn’t take worship seriously, or casting people in the lake of fire, I struggle with how to make sense of it.  How do we reconcile our message that God loved the world (the whole world) so much that God gave his only son for the world?  How do we square these stories with the affirmation that The Lord, the Lord, is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love?  How do we make it make sense alongside the proclamation that God is love and those who abide in love abide in God?  Yesterday during Bible and Brunch we talked about a second century Christian leader who was eventually denounced as a heretic named Marcion.  Marcion believed, at least according to the press clippings, that the God of the Old Testament was a totally different God than the God proclaimed in Jesus Christ.  The God of the Old Testament was judgmental and angry but that God had been defeated by this other God—the God of love and mercy.  And that’s one way to do it, I suppose, but I don’t believe it’s true and neither did Jesus by the way.  The early church rejected his heresy. It seems that anytime anyone created a completely coherent system to explain God, the main church dismissed it as heresy.  God is free and at times in predictable. We do not have permission, I don't think, to edit out the parts simply because they don't jive with the version of God we've created in our minds. And at least one way of seeing these judgment stories for me is to remember that perhaps God is like Mr. Jack Herring.  Laying out the paddles—there’s destruction by flood (but I promised never to use that), there’s an earthquake to that opens us and destroys the offenders, there’s striking people with diseases if they are dishonest, or taking their life suddenly because they withhold their gift intended for me.  Perhaps the judgmental texts are like that are God’s way of saying, “I have these paddles, but I don’t want to use them.  Children, don’t make me have to use them.” 

We set the scripture readings months ago and chose to use the story of Noah’s Ark long before we knew what this week would hold.  We are in a series called the “I illusions.”  All the texts are taken from Genesis.  We started with the illusion of innocence—with Adam and Eve.  Then with the illusion of isolation-with Cain and Abel.  And today we move to the illusion of invincibility.  It begins with a man not like Adam or Cain but one described as righteous, blameless, and pious.  The opening verse contains it’s own three point sermon.  Noah was righteous—he had integrity with himself; he was blameless—he had faithful dealings with his peers; he walked with God.  The description  evokes the words of Micah—God has shown you what is good and what the Lord requires—do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.  

We imagined then that we would emphasize the nature of humanity’s sin at the time of God’s grievance with humanity.  Noah’s neighbors were guilty of violence.  It’s mentioned more than once.  Contrary to the Puritanical judgment that sin is limited to  gluttony, debauchery, bad habits and bad hygiene, the story is clear that what grieved the heart of God most was humanity’s destruction of humanity.  In contrast with the “good” God saw in creation in chapter 1,  here God sees all of creation—and not just humanity—as corrupt, prone to  decay, not worth keeping around.  The earth itself, and not just the people on it, have stopped acting the way they should.  Clarence Jordan sees in this as the first stage in human development.  It is a stage of unlimited aggression. When the law is given in Exodus, a rule is created that says and eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot—in Latin its called lex talionis the law of talion, the law of retaliation.  Which says that the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the injury.  With the introduction of lex talionis we move from unlimited aggression to limited aggression.  Then there develops a moral principle that says, “you shall love your neighbor but hate your enemy.”  The third stage is from limited aggression to limited love.  But finally with Jesus Christ we hear—love your enemy, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you.  The movement is complete from unlimited aggression in Noah, to limited aggression in the law, to limited love in the commands, to unlimited love in Christ.  But it is still hard to believe that God’s ultimate plan is unlimited love, even of one’s enemies when God’s answer to humanity’s violence is their complete destruction—with the exception of Noah and his wife, and their three sons and their wives.

We  planned on saying all of that before this week.  Before a young man, radicalized by racist white supremacy, entered Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, sat through an hour’s worth of Bible study and then opened fire killing, Rev. Clementa Pickney, Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., Myra Thompson, Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson, and Ethel Lance.  That was before the flood of rhetoric filled what should have been quiet spaces of lament into stormy corners of advocacy.  We planned on saying that before another group was victimized.  Some of us wanting to distance this shooter’s actions from the racism prevalent in our culture have claimed he was mentally ill.  That kind of language displays the worst sort of use of the phrase  “mental illness.”  Mental illness is a broad category that contains many complex and difficult disorders like anxiety, depression, identity disorders like schizophrenia, and eating disorders just to name a few.  The mentally ill have a hard enough time being treated with the dignity they deserve and getting the treatment they need.  We should resist throwing around the term mental illness as a way of explaining away the inexplicable.  The mentally ill are not evil. Let's not burden them with this. 

We had planned on talking about the illusion of invincibility before the events of this week would so thoroughly and painfully reveal our vulnerability.  My heart hurts and I despair.  I am too weary to  speak of humanity’s violence toward humanity right now—not the ancient violence of Noah’s day nor the senseless violence of our own.  I do not wish to speak of God’s justice or rightness or capacity to judge because the implications frighten me.  We have not advanced so far beyond unlimited aggression; there’s no way to practice an eye for an eye with someone who has destroyed so much; I’m not sure I can trust my neighbor much less love him; and as for loving my enemy . . . . In the midst of the storm we want an escape hatch that takes us to the rainbow instantly. Get me to some place where I can assure myself that God doesn’t really act this way.  NO, cannot act this way.  But the escape hatch isn’t there and if it was, I’m afraid we’d find that it’s not a rainbow that awaits us—not a promise that everything will be alright.  I am not certain as to how we reconcile all of this with the overarching view that God is love. I do think That stories like Noah need to be in front of us because we risk putting God in a kind of box defined by our own conception of love.  We want to insist that God never does anything that we do not like and by that we say that’s what it means to claim God is love.  But God is free and God is just and the God of love is still a God of holiness with high expectations for how we are to live and treat one another.  We cannot harbor the illusion of our invincibility and live as people defined by violence and pretend that before God there is no reckoning. 

It shouldn’t have taken an aggressive act against a church to arouse my consciousness but it has. God’s authority stretches beyond the walls of any religious building.  The violence in Charleston, SC is the latest chapter in a horrific narrative that includes  McKinney, Garland, Baltimore, Ferguson, Boston, Newtown, Aurora . . . the list goes on. In my lifetime, I’ve not seen a season as volatile and frightening as the last few years.  This includes the difficult years of 1992 (the LA riots), 1993 (Waco compound burning), and 1994 (Oklahoma City Bombings).  Evil people acting in evil ways will be with us. We know that.  What we do not know is whether good people will counteract and mitigate the evil or simply acquiesce.  My sisters and brothers, we cannot simply hope to simply tread water.  There is an ark to be built and lives to be saved.  We build that ark through forging relationships with people in our community.  We cannot let the fear of who our neighbor might be overwhelm what our response to our neighbor must be.  I have reached out to some neighboring churches and tomorrow night at 7 pm, we will be at the College Park Center to hold a prayer vigil for Emanuel AME and for the nation and for ourselves.  We’ve also been invited to attend a Men’s day gathering at Greater Community Missionary Baptist Church next Sunday and I hope we will nurture that developing relationship. Today, I do not feel that God has cast the rainbow quite yet.  Nor do I believe God is pulling out paddles and placing them in front of us.  I believe God is giving us the materials and dimensions of an Ark and is beckoning us to build--build connections, build relationships, throw open the doors that others may enter and together we may sail the choppy seas of reconciliation. 

In Defense of Annoying People

1.  We overuse a metaphor we still find helpful.  "Journey" may be overused and feel self-helpish or new agey or just flakey, but how else do we offer a positive frame for a period of time that has been filled with ups and downs and remains unpredictable?  The metaphor offered clarity at some point and that's why it gets repeated.

2.  We inadequately express ideas that cannot be adequately expressed.  For example, I believe God acted to reconcile the division between us and God's self.  You may disagree with the assumption that a division existed (exists).  You may disagree with the conviction that God had to act to reconcile.  However, we offer ideas in hopes that people will collaborate with us as we seek truth.  

3.  We insert our own human failings into difficult situations.  We hug when we're supposed to shake hands.  We refrain from touching when we're supposed to offer affection. We say the wrong thing trying to console.  We process our own insecurities when trying to relate to someone else's.  Appropriate responses differ from person to person and we have not been given the mind-reading gifft.  Good intentions do not excuse bad actions, but we chose being present and making a mistake instead of leaving someone to suffer in isolation.   

4.  We ask honest questions.  Not every question is a rhetorical question, a loaded question, or a trap.  Sometimes, we are asking a genuine question.  Instead of filling in the blanks with your judgment of what you think we're thinking, could you simply fill in the blanks with what you're thinking?

  

Hall of Fame Induction Puzzles (and Pleases) Me

This past weekend, I was inducted into the WTAMU Communication Department Hall of Fame.  Someone asked me what a person does to be inducted into the Communication Hall of Fame at their alma mater. I did not have a good answer then and I am not sure I have one now. I am not a huge financial contributor to my school—I should be but I’m not. Other schools seem to use this kind of honor as a fundraising event. It became clear to me as the event unfolded that it was directly aimed at their present majors. Student teams from Mass Com had been sent to each of the inductees. They produced videos featuring us. Their work was excellent. They focused a lot of attention on advice we might give to communication students. They scheduled a reception that mainly featured inductees and students. It was meant to help them talk to professionals in various industries. The whole event seemed designed to communicate the message that a person can do a lot of different things with a communication degree and to dramatize that message with the inductees. Along with me, we inducted a man who serves the elderly as a social worker in Portland, OR, a print journalist and a local TV news anchor.

My induction into WTAMU’s Communication Hall of Fame comes at a time when I do not feel a great deal of professional success. I am not despairing; I am perplexed. But, I want to say two things about my induction. The first is that I am proud of my department for selecting a minister.  I hope I would feel this way had the minister not been me. We live in a world that still makes movies like “God’s Not Dead” and perpetuates stereotypes about the tension between the religiously observant and educated elites. This tension is as old as Christianity itself going back at least to the point that Tertullian asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” So, I think it is significant that my state-supported university recognizes ministry as a laudable enterprise for its graduates. Admittedly, per capita worship attendance among the faculty probably rivals anything you’d find at any explicitly religious school. Students more readily identify their social circle by naming the student ministry they participate in than sorority and fraternity membership. Still, I find it significant for a school to say ministry matters, faith is legitimate, and humble service to communities is worthy of “fame.”

The second thing that my induction gave me was the chance to do is to say thank you to the people who invested in me. I tried to get everyone named in my acceptance speech (Vartabedian, Seabourn, Coons, Smith, Yates). But, two people stand out in my experience—James Hallmark and Trudy Hanson. I had the opportunity of co-writing papers with both of them, took both of them for multiple classes and learned a great deal about their thought process and their work ethic. In many ways the two played contrasting roles in my education. Hallmark was my “burden of proof” professor. In academic debate, the side with burden of proof is the one with the responsibility to make their case. I always felt as though Hallmark’s stance toward students was, “I’m not yet persuaded but I am persuadable.” My abilities had burden of proof. Hanson was my “presumption” professor. With Hanson my abilities had presumption. She was endlessly encouraging. She still is. One might think that the presumption professor is easier. Hardly. The presumption professor is the one who doesn’t accept excuses for why we think we can’t do something. She’d calmly listen as I lamented my feelings of inadequacy, smile and say, “Well, I think you can do it."  I needed those two messages then . . . I still do.

Hope Springs

You Coulda Had Yer Pick
Hope Springs at MOVIECLIPS.com

Feeling Called Out On-Line

Social media has given us a unprecedented avenue to complain about other people's behavior.  Don't like the way a person dresses in the supermarket? Post about it on Facebook.  Think a person's parenting isn't up to snuff?  Post about it on Facebook.  Think another has faulty theology?  Post about it on Facebook. I've posted this sort of thing and thought about posting a lot more.

Then last week a friend posted a comment that seemed particularly aimed at me.  It was presented in a general way.  You know the formula, "No one should ever do X.  In the 21st Century decent human beings should know that X is wrong.  Especially ministers.  Of all people, Ministers should avoid X.  You should know better!"  (Where X = an offensive behavior).  Normally I agree with the ranter and I'm glad to join them in feeling morally superior but, not this time.  This time, I recognized that I was guilty of the very thing this person was condemning.

I had thought about responding but, I couldn't come up with anything to say.  I didn't necessarily want to defend the behavior.  The person did have a point.  It just felt like a public shaming more than "provoking one another to love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24).  It just made me think of the need for a social media Miranda rights.  "Anything you say, do or wear can be used against you in the court of social media."

Last night I was talking with some friends around a dinner table about experiences in church.  One of them mentioned a story about a woman, a devote Christian, who just happened to be wearing earrings in a church that strictly denounced the use of jewelry.  Rather than speaking gently to her in private, the preacher preached directly at her during the sermon.  The public humiliation wounded her.  In a less direct way, that's what these social media complaints feel like.  Certainly not as damaging as being singled out in a sermon but, still a public chastisement.  I wonder if we might not succeed in truly making the world a better place if we learned to speak directly and privately to people who act in ways we think are inappropriate.  My sense is that we would be more likely to change people than blanket posts directed anyone and everyone.

Matthew 28:11-15

Matthew 28:11-15 contains the report of an alternate theory about the resurrection. Because Matthew is a believer it is told in a way that speaks of conspiracy theories and bribery. I'm not dismissing the authority of scripture when I say that we see evidence here of Matthew's defensiveness. I do think believers get it into their heads (our heads) that certain things are true on out terms and anyone who has a different perspective is up to no good. 

In seminary, we were exposed to theologians who did not believe that Jesus lphysically rose from the grave. My initial reaction was strongly negative. The more I listened, the more I learned to value their insights. It was false to say they didn't believe in the resurrection. They believed that resurrection was something other than the physical resuscitation of the body.  It caused me to expand my own understanding of resurrection. If it is simply the return to life of one who was dead then why isn't Christ's resurrection viewed in the same light as Lazarus?  

I have come to believe that resurrection is an act of validation. In crucifixion the world sought to deny the legitimacy of Jesus's claims. In the resurrection God weighed in and judged the argument in favor of Christ. And in that way, it is an act of Grace. It is an eternal offer for people to rethink their rejection of Christ and his way. The empty tomb remains an open door through which people who have resisted God can return. 

What city are your Bible habits from?

            I sometimes ask people to be “Berean Christians.”  Acts 17 records the story of Paul and Silas, Christian missionaries who were run out of Thessalonica.  They went to a town called Berea or Beroea (NRSV).  In Berea, Paul and Silas got a better hearing.  The writer of Acts explained, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”   You’ll occasionally see Sunday School classes called “Bereans” in older congregations.  It’s a reference to this diligence in studying scripture.

            You will want a good translation of the Bible—or two or three.  The Bible was written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament).  So, we rely on a Bible translation.  There are a lot of translations of the Bible.  I don’t know why there are so many English translations but there are.  Let me make reference to just a couple.

            NRSV (New Revised Standard Version)—This is the version in our pew Bibles and is usually my preferred translation.  It tries to strike a balance between readability and accuracy of translation.

            NASB (New American Standard Bible)—The NASB strives for a more literal translation.  When you read an NRSV side-by-side with an NASB you’ll find that the NASB has more awkward sentence structure and several more footnotes explaining terminology.  Where the NRSV was designed primarily for the public reading of scripture, the NASB was primarily designed for study.

            NIV (New International Version)—The NIV was published in the 1970’s by Evangelical publishers.  It was revised in 2011.  The NIV like the NRSV seeks to be both accessible and accurate. 

            There’s a very helpful and short resource entitled, The Bible in English Translation:  An Essential Guide written by Steven M. Sheeley and Robert N. Nash, Jr.  It describes several more translations and gives a very helpful description of how these translations came to be. 

            I pray that you will take time to read scripture, take time to know what you’re reading, and prayerfully consider what it means for you.  Bereans were more noble because they searched the scriptures daily.  May the same be said of us.   

Observing Eastertide

The scripture reading today is Matthew 28:1-11. 

The Monday after Easter is the day to test whether we believe what we said the day before.  Easter begins on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.  I think somewhere I read that there is a more complex algorithm that determines it but that the definition fits the Easter in most US churches.  Easter Sunday begins the season known as Eastertide that stretches for seven weeks until Pentecost.  I struggle to really make Easter journey solid.  I suspect I'm not alone.  Just as I do not observe twelve days of Christmastide because our culture has moved on, I tend not to observe the 50 days of Eastertide because the culture surrounding me moves on--to Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Graduations and the wedding season.  This year, I'm making a commitment to Eastertide.  I invite you to make it with me.  I've collected the Gospel stories about Christ's resurrection and resurrection appearance along with some texts from the Epistles that speak about resurrection.  My goal is to read through these texts during Eastertide and to ask the question each time as I do, "What does it mean to walk in newness of life?" 

 

April 20-April 26

Matthew 28:1–8

Matthew 28:9–10

Matthew 28:11–15

Matthew 28:16–20

Mark 16:1–8

 

April 27-May 3

Mark 16:9–11

Mark 16:12–13

Mark 16:14–18

Luke 24:1–12

Luke 24:10–11

 

May 4-May 10

Luke 24:13–35

Luke 24:36–43

Luke 24:44–53

John 5:19–29

John 11:17–27

 

May 11-May 17

John 11:38–45

John 20:1–13

John 20:14–18

John 20:19–23

John 20:24–29

 

May 18-May 24 John 21:1–14 John 21:15–25 Acts 10:34–43 Romans 1:1–7 Romans 4:13–25

May 25-May 31 Romans 6:1-14 Romans 8:1–12 Romans 10:5–13 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 2 Corinthians 4:1–15

June 1-June 7 2 Corinthians 5:11–21 Ephesians 2:1–10 Philippians 2:5–11 Colossians 1:15–20 1 Peter 1:13–25

 

 

Me being wrong doesn't make you right

The internet has given a handful of people unprecedented power to correct the mistakes of the rest of us.  I’m not immune.  I once did a blog-post trying to rebuff people who refer to praise and worship songs as “7/11” songs.  Sometimes, though, our efforts to correct people’s mistakes can reveal more problems in our own thinking than it corrects in others. 

For Example, Ben Irwin recently blogged about five bible verses the rest of us tend to misuse.  He’s right enough, I suppose, in his assessment but I think he reveals his own blind spots in the process.

We misuse Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper . . .”  He implies that those who display this verse on Christian inspirational posters are probably thinking that it refers to “bad hair days, corporate ladders, or financial success.”  He explains that Jeremiah was addressing people who were facing an exile that would last 70 years.  What we mean by reciting the text today is not what it meant when it was written. 

Two responses—first, my 22 years in ministry have taught me one thing about people:  they are more complex than they appear.  I have learned that many people going through pain I simply cannot fathom.  Jeremiah 29:11 may be keeping a suicidal teenager afloat, or a man who’s been out of work for six months "keeping on keeping on", or motivating a diabetic to get into shape.  Jeremiah 29:11 doesn’t address a high school context, a labor-market context, or a medical context.  But, if you think that God doesn’t care about depressed teenagers, out-of-work laborers, or diabetics, then we’re probably talking about two different understandings of who God is. I don't think God minds their "misuse" of the text if it keeps them moving forward and faithful.  I think Christians need to get out of the business of assuming we know what’s going through people’s minds because we think we know what’s going on in their lives.  Just as “That verse you keep quoting? It may not mean what you think it means.” So also, people quoting that verse may not mean what you think they mean either. 

Second, all texts are taken out of context.  All biblical texts had a time and place being addressed.  No biblical text was specifically addressed to 21^st Century, middle-class America, except maybe John 17:20-23 (probably not that one either but, I was reaching).  If the Bible is going to speak to us today, we have to strive for dynamic analogies between our day and the day addressed by the text.  Exegesis—striving to understand what a text meant when it was written, to whom it was written, by whom it was written—is essential but not complete.  The Bible becomes the Word of God as we seek to go from understanding its context and content to our context.  By the way, the Bible itself reveals this.  Later texts in the Old Testament reach back to retrieve earlier traditional elements and do so without insisting upon exact quotation or accurate contextualization.  New Testament writers also quote the Old Testament and do so without following the rules of exegesis.  (great treatment of this in Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith).  Exegesis opens up and sharpens application but does not settle it. 

Irwin said we misuse Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”  And then he corrected our translation saying  “. . . a better translation is ‘In all things, God works for the good of those who love him.’”  The problem is, “in all things God” is not necessarily a better translation.  Ancient manuscripts were copied and recopied by hand until at least the invention of the printing press in the 1500s.  The diversity between Greek copies of any text are complex enough that some biblical scholars devote their entire careers to sorting out what are the most likely original versions of texts verse by verse.  They are called text critics and they have what I would regard as the dirtiest job in biblical scholarship.  Bruce Metzger, a respected text critic, explains that indeed the grammatical construction that makes God the subject of the sentence (i.e., ho Theos in the nominative) does appear in some manuscripts. The committee that edited the United Bible Society Greek New Testament (4^th edition) regarded them as less likely to be original than the texts that had “all” (panta in the nominative case) as the original.  So, it could be translated, “In all things God works for good . . .”as the NIV translates it but, that’s not a definitively better translation.  Translation is tricky business. Be careful about claiming that something is better translated one way rather than another. 

Irwin seems to have a problem with prosperity gospel preachers who misuse Luke 11:9 or athletes who quote Philippians 4:13.  I agree with him that we too easily grab on to texts assuming that they mean that God can be conscripted into our agendas. The people who do it manipulatively to line their pockets anger me also.  But, self-interest creeps into everything. The difficulty is the binary that he continues to thrust: People use a text to mean X but the original author meant Y.  I think a better way to understand this process of allowing scripture to become to word of God is seeing it more as an essay test rather than a multiple choice.  One thing I learned doing essay tests was that if I kept writing about it, I’d likely land on an acceptable answer or weary my professor into giving me at least partial credit.  Multiple choice questions are either right or wrong.  I can sense that Irwin is fed up with people who have clearly misused a passage.  They keep choosing “A—it’s all good things for me and bad things for you” when they should be considering “B—It’s more complicated than it looks;” OR “C—There’s a word of warning.” Or “D—probably shouldn’t touch this text with a ten foot pole.”  What I see happening, though, is that we have frightened increasing numbers of people away from scripture by over-correcting their interpretation of scripture.  Maybe what we need is a new paradigm that teaches people that all interpretations are partial, contextual, and made by people “prone to wander.”  And that those interpretations are good and necessary.  Perhaps we should teach people that the right interpretation isn’t the one that ends the discussion but the one that continues to look, listen, study and discern.  I’m not sure I would love scripture nearly as much had Ephesians 2:10 not gotten me through the 8^th grade in one piece.  The whole of Ephesians 2 and Ephesians itself and the Deutero-Pauline literature is far more complex than I realized at that point.  But, I continue to believe God spoke through that one verse to that one 13 year old kid.  I think many people need to be able to find just one passage of scripture that they can hang their hearts on for a while before they can gather the motivation to study the rest of scripture and work to study it rightly.

We agree that Matthew 26:11 does not excuse people neglecting the poor.  Neglecting the poor in Jesus name isn’t just bad scripture study it is sin.  But, we shouldn’t overlook another aspect of that text in its context which is that it is good to enjoy the presence of Christ when Christ is present.  I believe it is the same with scripture.  We should let scripture speak on its own terms and mean what it means.  Yet, we should not let the process of intentional scripture study steal the joy from scripture study. I am grateful that Irwin reminds us that the message of scripture IS NOT:  God will fulfill your agenda.  Agreed.  But we should be just as quick to say:  But God’s agenda as revealed in scripture though at times painfully honest and confrontational is ultimately good and leads to true joy.