Grace Chicago Homily Recap

For the Sake of the Gospel

2012-02-07T13:50:00.000-08:00

We continue in the season of Epiphany this Sunday, a time in the life of the church where we are invited and encouraged to take a fresh look at who Jesus is revealed to be according to the gospel writers. If you are anything like me you need to take fresh looks at Jesus; for, one of the perpetual problems that Jesus’ followers have is that we tend to imagine that we know all we need to know about Jesus. We think, maybe even subconsciously at times, that we have in some sense got the total picture of Jesus’ meaning for us - and so when we come back again and again to the same stories we don’t come in the posture of the life-long learner who expects to learn something new, or expects and desires to have a fresh encounter with Jesus. As we look at some familiar passages from Mark during Epiphany and Lent, may it be that the Holy Spirit will open our hearts and give us fresh experiences with Jesus.

In this passage before us this Sunday morning we meet Jesus doing more miracles so I want to think with you a bit about what it is that Mark wants us to notice about Jesus’ miracles. The first observation is the obvious one. One preacher puts it this way - Jesus cannot help but do miracles; everywhere he goes he heals the sick and releases people from the control of the powers of darkness, as he casts out deacons and yet (and we will see this born out more and more in Mark’s gospel as we go along).... and yet it is clear that Jesus sees miracles as subsidiary to his central mission (Mark 1:38). This is because the human condition must be fixed from the inside out in order for God to accomplish his redemptive goals for humankind. So, the central mission of Jesus in the gospels was not to do miracles but to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom, which mission is accomplished in Jesus’ death on the cross where the cosmic victory is won, where forgiveness of sins is accomplished. The power of the cross and the resurrection, in turn, empowers the new humanity in Christ, to live as a foretaste of the world to come where miracles will not be needed because God’s desires for humanity will no longer be thwarted by evil or sin. So, if we look and listen carefully to the way Jesus approaches miracles in his overall ministry we are reminded that our greatest need(s) is dealt with by Jesus on the cross and cannot be fixed by miracles.

This has important implications for our lives not because we should not desire miracles but because we so often forget what is our greatest need. Our greatest needs: to be forgiven, to be able to forgive others, to be able to love as Jesus loved us - all of this comes from the heart of Jesus’ ministry where he changes us from the inside out and prepares us for the world to come.

OK, that is all true. Miracles are subsidiary to the central mission of Jesus; however what we often forget is that the whole reason Jesus was always moved with compassion, the whole reason he did miracles, was because the focus of the central mission drove him to alleviate human suffering as often as was possible. If we understand that what drove Jesus to the cross was his passion to reverse the effects of sin and enable human beings to flourish as God intends, then we will not be able to help ourselves when it comes to being moved with compassion to alleviate human suffering. May God give us the grace and wisdom to organize our lives so that we always adorn the central mission of the gospel with compassionate acts of mercy for any and all whose life circumstances are wrought with the suffering that comes from living in a world that is still awaiting final redemption.

Questions for discussion:

1. What tends to distract you from recognizing your central needs as Jesus defines them according to his mission. Can you give some examples?

2. Can you think of some things you can do on a regular basis that will push these distractions away?

3. Is there anything wrong in strongly desiring God to act on your behalf miraculously? Can you want a miracle too much relatively speaking in comparison to the rest of your needs and wants?

4. Are you accustomed to thinking of Jesus’ passion to miracles as flowing from the same passion that drove him to the cross? Do you accept this theological view? If not, why not? If so, can you think of some ways that this insight might help you talk about the mission of Jesus with those who have not yet joined Jesus’ mission?

Advent Two: Trust the Man With the Axe

2011-12-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to
preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation:
Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,
that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our
Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

When we were looking at the apocalyptic language of our gospel reading last week, we asked ourselves the question: why in the world does the church calendar ask us to enter into the jolting and somewhat disturbing imagery of the apocalyptic on our way to cozy Christmas and the baby in the manger? We noted a couple of things last week. 1. The church has always wanted us to think about the fact that we live in between Christ’s two advents. In the in-between-time we must learn to read our present in light of God’s promised future. 2. The vivid and startling imagery of the apocalyptic genre in Scripture is meant to jar us, to wake us up to God’s promises, encouraging us to take hold of them.

Our readings this morning on the 2nd Sunday of Advent invite us to think of our great hope again. In the reading from Romans, Paul explains that all of Scripture is given that we might have hope (15:4). But what sort of hope and hope for what? I fear that we like to hope for the future in ways that don’t get in the way too much with our agenda for the present. We like to hear that our suffering is temporary and so when the preacher talks about hope for redemption we take heart. But the Apostle Paul thinks that gospel shaped hope should get in the way of our agendas if our agenda is getting in the way of God’s. In our reading from Romans today Paul looks into the future and he sees one humanity singing with one voice. (“May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But he looks at the church at Rome and he sees Gentiles snubbing Jews. (If you look carefully at his words to the Gentiles in Romans 11 it is not hard to imagine that Paul is seeing the seeds of Christian anti-semitism at work even in this early period of Christian history (e.g. 11:18).

So, he says, in so many words, to the church: “make room at the table for everyone. Gentiles, recognize that your table is not the Lord’s table unless there is room for the Jew; Jews, see in God’s grace to the Gentiles the progress of God’s promise to redeem all people and don’t resent them for being grafted onto your tree.

But how about you and me? Is our hope in the future a private hope that we pull out of our pockets to make ourselves feel better when we are suffering, or is it the public hope of the gospel that shapes our agenda of how we spend our time and money and teaches us to whom we are to be hospitable? Have we allowed our own feelings of superiority to cause us to remove chairs from our tables? No room for you! You offended me once and did not ask for forgiveness. No room for you. I am this sort of person and you are that sort of person; no room for you at my table, for you are not my kind. Or, perhaps we have just allowed laziness and apathy to keep us from allowing gospel shaped hope to empower us to offer hospitality to those in great need. Whatever the case, I suspect that each of us could use reminding that our hoped for future as Christians is a future prepared for our enemies as well as our friends and that it is that hope which should shape our way of being in the world right now in the present. But as with every reminder of the need to repent there is a promise that God’s grace is sufficient to forgive and empower us to live more faithfully tomorrow. The Lord’s table which embraces us each week at communion represents the future: one humanity singing in one voice. Come now and be filled with that hope!

PART 2

Well, if it was not unsettling enough to have apocalyptic imagery last week, the first Sunday of Advent, and then to be reminded just a few minutes ago that we get terribly stingy and self-centered about what and whom we hope for, now we meet John in the desert. He is a disturbing figure who looks and smells funny. He is deliberately calling forth in his dress, his message, and his style, an image that reminds God’s people of the warnings of the OT prophets - the kinds of prophetic warnings to God’s people to not take God for granted but to repent and ask for refreshing. So, even though during Advent we want to get to the coziness of Christmas, God is always messing with us (messing with us in a good way), because he knows that left to our own devices we will not want what is best for us or what is best for our neighbor. So God says, so to speak, all roads to the manger pass through the desert (phrase borrowed from Fred Craddock). (Remember, Israel was in the desert for 40 years; that tidbit would not be lost on Matthew’s readers and hearers. The desert is the place where God wants you to get know him in a deep and life-giving way. In the desert we meet John and hear his preaching.

There is much that can and should be said of this text but in the time that remains I want to look at just one idea with you and here it is: the image of Jesus with an axe and a winnowing fork is meant to give you hope. These images of Jesus are sobering but hopeful. What John the Baptist is saying, in so many words, is that his call for repentance will come to fruition only after the work of Jesus’ relentless and purging love. Talk about relentless - his love is pictured in these powerful agricultural images that are quite vivid and fast moving, images of a farmer who means business! Jesus’ refining and relentless love is like a farmer that goes through his orchard and chops down the dying trees in order to have more room for healthy growth; Jesus’ relentless love is like the farmer who vigorously throw the wheat up in the air over and over again until the good wheat is separated from the chaff. This is how John the Baptist previews the work of Christ. Jesus’ mission is this: he is ready to go to work in the depths of our hearts - but are you and I desiring that this morning? God wants you to know that he longs for your heart to be laid bare before him. He wants your heart that loves, your heart that hates, your heart that is afraid, your heart that manipulates and desires to manipulate even more. He wants us to put everything before him and ask him to work in our lives to make us more like Jesus in the way we live in this world. For us, this will always involve repentance. But in order to repent like we need to we must put away our fear of the future and our fear of future failure, for we can only be faithful in the present moment. We must eave the future to God. We must put away our desire to be in charge of our lives and actively ask Jesus to lay us bare before him. In order to repent like we need to we need to desire to repent like we need to and this comes only through our cooperation with the work of God’s spirit. We must actively call upon God’s spirit to open us up to the one who “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until he divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow..... the one who is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, before whom no creature is hidden, before whom all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account (paraphrase of Hebrews 4:12)

The imagery of the passage from Matthew - the purging of the orchard and the separation of the wheat from the chaff - is a picture that is meant to jar us into realizing that God is seriously at work in Christ to bring about his kingdom. Everything that does not make for human flourishing in the kingdom will be purged away. The images are meant to sober us and call us to repentance because the man with the axe love us very much.

1. Do you ever feel like your hope for the future, based on the promises of God’s redemption, is too self-centered? Can you give an example? What can you do in practical every-day ways to resist/avoid that temptation?

2. Do you feel that God’s love is what motivates him to lay us bare before him? Can you think of an example from the Scriptures, Old or New Testaments, where God says that his discipline of us is a sure mark of his love for us?

3. Do you treat others with love and embrace when you encounter them in what you consider to be sinful behavior on their part? If not, why not? Do you sometimes need boundaries in order to love someone with Christian love? How do you know when you need boundaries and/or when you may be hiding behind boundaries when you really need to embrace and just be patient with a person’s growth?

Advent One: Seeing the Present in Light of the Future

2011-11-30T11:46:00.001-08:00

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility; that on the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

This morning we embark upon the season of advent. It is sometimes asked, why the church calendar begins a season as cozy as Christmas with disturbing apocalyptic imagery (Luke 21:25-36). Well, the answer is that the church has always recognized that we live in between Christ’s two advents - his first advent and his promised return from the future where he will join the world to come to this world, and bring all things and all people under his rule of peace, justice, and love.

But to live in between two advents is to need reminding of how to read the present in light of the future. The bible often invokes the apocalyptic genre in order to jolt us into recognizing that the present must be read in light of the future for us to be faithful to Christ’s mission in this world, to flourish as human beings. This is true for all of us regardless of what time in history we live or what pressures we are under. However, Biblical scholars remind us that apocalyptic language is most often generated by people who are being oppressed and persecuted by tyrants, feeling and living as if the end of the world was really upon them.

Reverend Scott Johnston of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan makes these insightful remarks:
“Those who have endured (or still endure) oppressive situations understand apocalyptic literature better than most of us. Allan Boesak, renowned South African preacher, once remarked that it made sense for him to preach on apocalyptic themes during the years of apartheid, for apocalyptic images spoke to and adequately described the lives of his listeners. Boesak's parishioners knew what it was like to live each day as if it were the end of the world. Their community had experienced appalling calamity and had witnessed evil dragons prowling in the land. When the trucks would come to surround their townships with razor wire, Boesak described them as great beasts which vomited an obscene, barbed cargo calculated to cut people off from each other and from hope. The preacher's imagery wasn't over-the-top grim for these folks, it was perhaps the only way for them to make sense of their plight in the world.”

So, for Israel living under the oppressive rule of Babylon, the prophet Daniel crafted an apocalypse to remind God’s people that the future belongs to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and not the Babylonian tyrants that ruled Israel during the exile. For Christians living under the persecution of Rome, John writes the book of Revelation to remind the churches that the alliance between the beasts of this world, the whore of Babylon, and Satan will be destroyed by God; and that the new heavens and new earth will be for those who have suffered trials and tribulations in this life a place where God himself will wipe away every tear; evil will be arrested, eradicated and justice will reign with love.

One implication for us is that we must allow the apocalyptic language of Scripture to call us to solidarity with those who have been pushed to the side while the powerful and successful of the world look upon them simply as the casualties of history....

…... As Richard Bauckham reminds us, “if the future belongs to Jesus Christ, then we can see the future, Jesus Christ's future, in those whom this world treats worst: those whose lives are mostly pain or grinding poverty, those whose lives are destroyed by disease or violence or abuse, the millions who die young before scarcely living at all. These are the people the myths of human progress have never had anything to offer; human progress can only leave such people behind, the casualties of history. Jesus Christ does not leave them behind. He will raise them into his future. It is their future, in which God himself (as the book of Revelation tells us) will wipe away every tear from every eye. And should we tempted not to believe in the future of Jesus Christ, it is those people we should remember. People who feel that this life is good enough and we need not hope for another are always affluent people leading comfortable, fulfilling lives. They may feel this life is enough for them, but they have no right to think it is good enough for the millions whose lives have been misery. It is those people for
whom Jesus Christ will be revealed in the end - and for the rest of us if we care about
them.”

Now, let’s come back to the Luke text in front of us:

For Jesus’ audience who first heard these words, their generation would not pass away before they would see the destruction of the temple, truly an apocalyptic event. They would also experience oppression for living out Jesus’ mission in a world that remained hostile to his message and mission.

But what about us? What does this language have to say to you and to me? Well, we have already noted that it challenges us to declare our solidarity with the poor, the oppressed and marginalized. But the passage before us speaks to all of us whether we are physically poor, oppressed or whatever, because all of us human beings live under the weight of a world that can be beastly to us.

For all of us this passage reminds us that the evil we suffer will not have the last word because the future belongs to God. Whether you suffer the horrors of physical or emotional abuse, the suffering of illness, the despair that accompanies mental illness, the terrible nightmares that accompany your fears of the future, you must know that your future is held in God’s hand. Jesus has come to be near you in your suffering, to hold you tightly to himself, and to keep you close to his heart. And one day he will bring you into the new heavens and the new earth where you will know and walk in the fullness of human joy. We need that message of comfort don’t we? We need that when we are suffering from the throes of living in a fallen world; we need it else we will give into despair and turn from God’s love to the life-destroying forces of apathy or some sort of self-destructive behavior. The temptation is always there for us to try to escape the pain of suffering in this fallen world though numbing ourselves; it is no coincidence that Jesus warns in this very passage against a life-style of drunkenness, dissipation and narcissistic worry. The gospel reminds us that if or when we fall into these patterns of behavior, or similar ones, that we are running away from our dignity as God’s people; for, to give ourselves without repentance to sinful escapes puts us in a place where we it becomes either difficult or impossible to be Christ’s presence of love and help for our loved ones and our neighbors. So, the gospel calls us in the midst of even terrifying circumstances to pray for God’s help to be kept near to the love of Christ so that we might represent his love, especially in the midst of great tribulation.

Signs of the apocalypse abound in the New Testament but the Son of Man breaking into this world to reclaim it and us in the strong grip of his love is the one sign that stands above all others.... when I think of this sign (the Son of Man riding on the clouds) I think of the words of Bono in his great song, Window in the Skies....

“Oh can't you see what love has done
To every broken heart
Oh can't you see what love has done
For every heart that cries

Love left a window in the skies”

Questions for discussion:

1. What aspect of your life do you struggle with the most when it comes to seeing your present circumstances in light of God’s promised and revealed future?

2. Can you point to times in your life where life-crushing worry or the overwhelming desire to numb yourself has kept you from your responsibility to be the love of Christ to those around you? Can you think of life-giving ways to address the worry and suffering in your life? What helps you move towards these and away from life-killing patterns of dealing with worry and suffering?

3. Do you agree with Bauckham here in what follows? “And should we tempted not to believe in the future of Jesus Christ, it is those people we should remember. People who feel that this life is good enough and we need not hope for another are always affluent people leading comfortable, fulfilling lives. They may feel this life is enough for them, but they have no right to think it is good enough for the millions whose lives have been misery. It is those people for
whom Jesus Christ will be revealed in the end - and for the rest of us if we care about
them.” Do you think this thought of his has value as an apologetic? Do you think Richard Bauckham gets invited more than once to cocktail parties where frivolous conversation abounds?

The Church is Catholic Part 3

2011-11-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

This Sunday we talked about catholicity one more time. We reviewed the first two homilies for a bit before moving into new territory. By way of review, we noted that catholicity has some overlap with oneness (the church is one). However, we also noted that being committed to catholicity means that you are welcoming the very people with whom unity will not be automatic, but challenging. The challenge comes because of our sinfulness and brokenness that leads us to be fearful and insensitive to the other. We saw that last week when we considered the case of the Greek speaking widows in Acts 6 who were being overlooked by the Jews in leadership in the synagogue at Jerusalem. This week we encountered another rift between Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s letter to the Romans; however, this time the Gentiles have the power over the Jews.

In 49 AD, Jews were expelled from Rome by Claudius. Five years later, when Claudius died, they are allowed to return. At the point of their return, however, Gentiles were in charge of the home churches and they apparently did not have the best attitude towards Jewish Christians or the Jewish people as a whole. In fact, some number of Gentiles Christians were, apparently, unloving and smugly self-righteous towards the Jews in Rome (11:18,25).

What does this have to do with catholicity? Everything! For the church to grow in catholicity, we must be a place where ethnic barriers (and similar barriers) that keep people apart normally are torn down by the gospel; in their place must grow mutual love. If we can’t make catholicity work in the church, “the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth (Luke Timothy Johnson)”, then we have a puny message to offer the world.

Application:

Paul’s challenge to Gentiles regarding their attitudes and actions towards Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews is that they are to be humble (Romans 11:20) regarding their place in God’s redemptive plan and to be hopeful about the final outcome of God’s redemptive promises for Israel and the world (Romans 11: 30-32). But what about us? We are not in house churches in 1st century Rome. How does this challenge of humility and hopefulness translate into our situation?

With regard to humility, I suggested that we consider again the words of Richard Bauckham regarding the posture we are to have to what we regard as the the truth of God in Christ: “It is the very nature of Christian truth that it cannot be enforced. Coerce belief and you destroy belief and turn the truth believed into a lie. Truth must be claimed in a way appropriate to the content of the truth.... The image the Bible itself often suggests is that of witness..... Witness is non-coercive. It has no power but the convincingness of the truth to which it witnesses. Witnesses are not expected, like lawyers, to persuade by the rhetorical power of their speeches, but simply to testify to the truth for which they are qualified to give evidence.”

With regard to hopefulness, I suggested that we need to flavor our gospel message with a deep hope for God’s salvation to extend to all people. I say this because this seems to be where Paul ends up in his lament over the promises of God to Israel. Like the laments of the Old Testament prophetic figures, Paul is frustrated with the unbelief of the people but also wonders why God would allow his promises to remain unfulfilled. Also like Old Testament lament, Paul ends on a note of remarkable hope regarding not only Israel but also the whole world (Romans 11:11-12; 25-32) - the Gentiles have been grafted in to make Israel jealous; God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he might show mercy to all. In turn, this note of hope, leads Paul to doxology: “O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.... who has given a gift to him to receive a gift in return?!” God is the one who knows the first from the last, God is one who gives gifts to us - his actions are not controlled by our “gifts” to him, God is in control of the world and desires for all people to be redeemed.

So, when it comes to accompanying our gospel message with a sense of urgency, we must leave people with the impression that the reason there is a sense of urgency to follow Jesus is based on his desire to move them into a place of redemption where they may flourish as human beings - not based on our presumed knowledge of what God will do with them if they don’t.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you agree that we should flavor our gospel appeal with a deep hope for God’s salvation to extend to all people? If, saturating our gospel message with this kind of hope is a solid approach, how ought we to go about conveying a sense of urgency around following Jesus? What words and grammar are we to use?

2. Rev. Dr. John Stott used to say something to this effect when he pondered the destiny of the world and the human race: salvation in Christ must be bigger than death in Adam in order to be consistent with the contours of God’s promises of a big redemption. Do you agree with this logic? Why, or why not?

3. If someone were to say to you: “I know you are a Christian and I know Christians believe everyone else is going to hell, do you think I am going to hell?”... how would you answer?

The Church is Catholic Part 2

2011-11-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

We come back this morning to theme of the catholicity of the church. We noted last week that the Greek word that is translated, catholic, means the whole, or throughout the whole. When the leaders of the early church used that word in the creeds what they were confessing was that the love of God expressed most fully and comprehensively in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was never meant to be for a few people, one group of people, or one sort of people, but for the entire human race (to take the language from the New Testament, God’s love is for every tribe and the gospel is recognized as accomplishing the healing of the nations - this is how the book of Revelation talks about it). Moreover, we find the catholicity of the church promised in the covenant made with Abraham: in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12).

Another way of saying all of this in an earthier way - there is no sort or kind of person anywhere in the world that God does not claim as his divine image bearer (albeit, in need of restoration). As such, God desires for all to experience Christ’s redeeming and life-giving love. Now, It is one thing to confess these words and to say, “hear, hear.... that is the sort of God I want to worship - one whose love is limitless.” However, it is another thing to want catholicity to come to pass in our midst - and to celebrate it when it does - when the kinds and sorts of people that are God’s own make us uncomfortable, uneasy, or afraid. For each of us there are some people who follow Jesus who make us suspicious, simply because of their ethnicity, their political views, their social/class status, or because they have come to conclusions about how to apply the gospel to their lives that differ sharply from the sorts of applications we might make. This suspicion, at best, and hatred at worse, that is brought about by the fear of the other is itself, of course, a consequence of living in a fallen world. For the kind of healing to come that God desires for the world, the church must grow in its passion for catholicity. Christians all over the world must long for catholicity to be a robust reality in our own lives and our churches. Another way of saying this is that for the universal to come we must all care very much about the particulars of our own church communities; for it is upon the upon the fabric of our relationships with people in our local churches, Grace Chicago in this instance - it is upon the fabric of our relationships in our church that God desires to sew a message of hope for a world where fear of the others results in daily violence and misery.

I put it this way because I think it is too easy to keep things in the abstract when we simply say, “God loves everybody”. Part of our spiritual formation must include a longing for God to enable us to love, serve, and pray for people who we would find it difficult to be involved with apart from the gospel at work in our midst, through us, and in our church community.

In the time we have remaining I want to look at some clues about what this looks like in the texts before us this morning. In Acts 6 we have ethnically Hebrew Christians in charge of the temple of Jerusalem. Because of a language and cultural barrier the Greek speaking Jewish widows in the temple were being overlooked in the distribution of food for the poor. The apostles’ response is to share their authority by quickly pulling together some more leaders, all Greek speaking, in order to successfully administer that aspect of the ministry of the church. The applications to take from this: when the Holy Spirit comes to work in opening up local churches to catholicity, the dominant and the powerful in the church will become sensitive to the needs of the weaker and less powerful in their midst; everyone in the church will turn away from their self-interests and look for ways to help others; and people in the church, without renouncing their identity and histories, will see their unifying identity in Christ as more important.

Note well! The result of all of this is that many priests in the temple began to follow Jesus. Talk about a tough crowd. When catholicity is at work in a church community even the most skeptical onlookers can’t help but take notice and begin to question who and what is at work to produce such a strong and loving community. So, it is of the utmost importance that we come to understand that our repentance over our lack of catholicity is a crucial component to living out the gospel for the sake of the world who looks on. For example: the leaders who allowed the Greek speaking widows to be overlooked had to repent and change course in order to meet their needs, reminding us that the world is not looking for perfection from the church but for authenticity, and a model for how reconciliation and wholeness can come to pass. Stephen Fowl puts it this way: "we are reminded that.... compassion and mercy are necessary if Christians are to exercise forbearance and forgiveness/ For Christians, this is crucial because the quality of common life in Christ is not simply judged by the holiness of believers' lives (though that is certainly to be encouraged). Rather, Christian community is more definitively judged by the forgiveness that enables and calls Christians to be reconciled and reconciling people. Indeed, it is the quality that is most attractive to a broken and alienated world (Fowl)."

Questions for discussion:

1. Can you offer an example from your life or from a situation you know of that demonstrates growth in catholicity?

2. What fears might the apostles have felt at the prospect of sharing leadership with the Hellenists? Do these fears remind you of any of your own fears that might be holding you back in your growth towards being more catholic? Examples?

3. Do you feel that you represent the life of the church to your friends outside of the church as a dynamic life-giving community that desires to be more catholic and repents of its lack of catholicity? How would you say that sort of thing in your own words?

The Church is Catholic Part 1

2011-11-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

When we confess in the creed that the church is catholic what we are confessing is that the gospel is for all people and for the whole person. The word translated catholic means literally, throughout the whole, and when the early church leaders used that Greek word that is translated “throughout the whole” what they were confessing was that the love of God expressed most fully and comprehensively in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was never meant to be for a few people or one group of people but for the entire human race (to take the language from the New Testament, God’s love is for every tribe and the gospel is recognized as accomplishing the healing of the nations - from the book of Revelation). Moreover, we find the catholicity of the church promised in the covenant made with Abraham, in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12).

Side note: so, obviously, the confession that the church is catholic, at the time the creed was written, was not meant to refer to a belief in an institutional church but was meant to refer to the scope of the mission of the church - universal in scope and for the whole person, bringing God’s healing to the whole person: addressing all brokenness - physical, emotional, and spiritual.

So, as with the unity of the church (the church is one) and the holiness of the church (the church is holy) when we confess that the church is catholic we are talking about an aspect of what Jesus has done and is doing in us and the world. And as we did with the first two marks of the church, oneness and holiness, we will look to the teaching of the NT in order to flesh out what we mean by saying that the church is catholic.

Another side note: Perhaps it might be helpful to pause for a moment here and draw a distinction between what we are saying when we say that the church is one and what we mean when we say that the church is catholic. Oneness stresses our need to work towards unity as Christ’s followers; catholicity reminds us that we are never to be at rest with whatever version of unity we enjoy inside the church - not even for a few minutes - because the scope of God’s desire to reconcile human beings to himself and to each other is universal. The gospel is for the whole of humanity and for the whole person; that is what we mean when we talk about catholicity.

The most powerful example in the New Testament of catholicity (the love of God moving forward in the world for the salvation of all) is witnessed in the initial mission of Jesus’ followers, who, remember, were Jewish. And it is obvious from the very start that, as Jews, they were meant to bring the good news of God’s love in Christ to another people group, the Gentiles. So very early on we have the New Testament church bearing witness to the love of God spilling over from the original group in order to bring people who had never known anything of the promises of Abraham into that stream of God’s promises that point forward to the healing of the nations, the salvation of the world, when Christ will be all in all.

When Jews and Gentiles came together through the ministry of the apostles we witness a union that would have not naturally occurred in common life. And it is clear that the leaders in the early church saw this union of Jew and Gentile as a powerful witness and anticipation of what God desires to do throughout the whole of humanity - ethnic groups whose histories taught them to hate each other are brought together through a common love for Jesus; men who had used their power to subjugate women are called to be servants to their newly constituted relationships with their sisters in Christ, etc.

So far so good. But we have to ask ourselves what does this confession that we believe in the catholicity of the church mean to us in our formation as a church today, and as individual Christians today. Well, maybe an analogy might help - an analogy from just last week as we considered our confession that the church is holy. When we confess that the church is holy we are certainly not confessing that we have arrived at holiness as God is holy; we are confessing a hoped for future grounded in the resurrection of Jesus and secured by his death on the cross. This future we live into hopefully, in such a way as it provides a certain reference point for us in the the midst of our troubled and imperfect lives. When we confess holiness we confess that we belong to this holiness in faith and repentance and we are reminded to repent and to return to our journeys, to get out of ourselves and get closer to Jesus, as we name each of our unholy patterns of behavior and thought - naming them in confession, even as we receive the boldness to renew our journeys through forgiveness. And so, confessing holiness is a reminder of how things will be according to God’s promise and a call to action in the present in light of what God has promised. Similarly, with catholicity - we look around and see the degree to which God’s love in Christ is yet to reach the breadth of humanity. As soon as we celebrate what has happened already, we mourn what is still not yet. What is needed in that moment, I suggest, is a pattern for how to respond to the “not yet”. For this pattern I turn to the same people groups, Jews and Gentiles, and the same time frame we mentioned before, the time of the New Testament church.

The already of catholicity (the gospel is for all people) that was coming to pass in the New Testament had another side to it, a sorrowful side. Here it is: for all of the wonderful reconciliation that was going on between Jews and Gentiles in the early church there remained a great deal of misunderstanding and animosity between Jews and Gentiles on the one hand, and, on the other, between the majority of the Jewish people and their kindred who were Jesus’ followers.

How St. Paul responded to this tragedy I suggest offers us a pattern for how we are to address our own longing for the love of God in Christ to touch all the families of the earth whether in Chicago Lakeview, Logan Square, Lawndale, or far away.

In the 11th chapter of Romans Paul takes up the sorrow that he feels for his kindred who have not yet heard and responded favorably to the gospel of Jesus as the good news of God’s making good on his covenant with Abraham to bless all of the families of the earth in Israel’s blessing. Interestingly, some of his thoughts about his sorrow are directed towards Gentile converts as he explains that one purpose of his ministry with them is to make his Jewish kindred jealous! “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save some of them (Romans 11:13vv.).” So confident is Paul of the gospel to make life beautiful for Jew and Gentile alike that he can say that his ministry, as Apostle to the Gentiles, will give birth to communities of people that will be so lovely that even the most skeptical will want to join in.

(homily cut short on account of time... to be continued next week)

Questions for discussion:

1. How is Paul using the word jealousy? Can you put in your own words what he means by it?

2.. Can you think of an example when you observed the gospel at work in such a way that you thought it made life look so attractive that even the most skeptical might take notice and want her life to have a part in the Christian community?

3. When you ponder the degree to which the love of God in Christ has not reached as far as it ought how do you feel about that? Does the universal scope of God’s love in Christ mean that in the gospel is the only place true insights into God's character may be found?

The Church is One

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This next four Sundays we will be considering together what it means to confess what are often referred to as the four marks of the church. In the Nicene Creed we confess: the church is one, the church is holy, the church is catholic and the church is apostolic. This homily series builds on the homily I preached a couple of weeks ago entitled, Why Go To Church? That homily was born out of a conviction that we don’t talk enough in the church about the meaning and purpose of the church itself. We’re not the only ones - as I speak with friends and colleagues in ministry it seems that none of us feel that we are doing as good a job as we should be with regard to equipping God’s people to know the basics of eccelesiology, the doctrine of the church.

We talk about the love of God; we talk about our relationships with each other and with God, we talk about the programs of the church but we don’t talk often enough about the nature of the church itself. However, when Jesus talks about the church and when the New Testament church leaders talk about the church they have in their minds tangible communities that shared universal characteristics. They were public, in the sense that all were welcome. The common denominator was not - at least not in a fundamentally important way - a common affinity for anything or anyone except that each person coming was coming because of their response to the gospel, because of an interest in or love for Jesus.

As these assemblies were maturing, the New Testament leaders, who we refer to as apostles, helped these young churches understand their unique purpose in the world. Just as God dwelt with his people in the OT and desired to demonstrate his love for humankind through Israel, the church was to embrace the continuation of this mission, albeit in an amped up form. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, the church embodies the very presence of Jesus for the world, In the church we drink and eat of God’s love and forgiveness so that we might show the world what it is like to be being made new. As Luke Timothy Johnson puts it in what is becoming a banner quote for this new homily series: "The church is, in a real sense, the continuation of the incarnation, the embodied presence of the resurrected Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit... the church is.... the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth."

To start thinking of the church in this way brings us very quickly right up against some of the most powerful trends of living and being in our culture wherein we are encouraged to be consumers first and givers second. What is in it for me? What can I get out of this or that experience, etc. This approach to church and life in general is taught more by example than ideology, so it kind of sneaks up on us. But powerfully by example after example we are taught that what enables us to be fulfilled as individuals is found in groups of people who we have a lot in common with. We look for affinity groups where we like the same food; we like the same sports; we have similar political views, we love the same sorts of things and same sorts of people.

However, when we come upon the church of the New Testament, the church for whom Christ died and lives, we meet a group of people who grew to realize that beyond the common loves of social friendships there is a more important common love that is meant to unite people across race and class, a common love that is meant to reconcile enemies, a common love that revolutionizes the use of power in the world as those with power learn that they are to become servants in the same way that Jesus was a servant. This is the way St. Augustine characterized the common love shared in the church:

“Saint Augustine argued in the City of God that a "people" - - any “people” is a group that shares a common love. The better the thing that is loved, the better the people. The church, then, exists as a people to show the world that there is something worthy of love - Jesus Christ.” - paraphrase of a remark made by Dr. Mark Husbands, Professor of Theology, Hope College.

And so, we take up the oneness of the church:

The unity or oneness of the church is probably meant to be taken in two different but related ways. First, that oneness with Jesus means oneness with the divine life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondly, Jesus continues to bring people to this oneness through the oneness, or unity, that is at once an attribute and task of the church, the body of Christ.

When we read these words on oneness in John 17 we are stepping into a strong and important theme in John’s gospel, which we are introduced to at the very beginning of the gospel. In the first chapter of the gospel, John tells us that no one has seen God, but that Jesus, who is one with the Father, close to the Father’s heart, makes him known. And so, in John 17 we meet the continuation and expansion of that theme as Jesus expresses in prayer how he will continue to make known the love of God to the world. His means for continuation point to the second dimension of the church’s oneness, because the means is through the corporate (community) life of the church. (Aside: the fact that so many of us can read this portion of John 17 and miss, or underestimate, the community or corporate dimension of what Jesus is talking about is a reminder to us that we don’t think enough about the nature and purpose of the church). And so we meet again another stark reminder that we consume not for ourselves but we consume God’s love so that we may continue its flow to others, “that the world may believe that you have sent me....”

Perhaps it makes you anxious to think of yourself as one of the ones through whom God desires to love others. However, when we consider this weighty thought in the context of John 17 and in the context of the purpose of the church in general, we come to understand that the emphasis is not on the ability of any one individual to convince someone that God loves them through the testimony of any one individual life. Rather, the life we live in community with others is the basic means God uses to paint a picture of his redemptive love at work in redeeming the world. What I mean by this is that your life in community with your brothers and sisters in Christ will be more and more shaped according to the self-giving love of Jesus, so that your life in Christian community bears witness to the unity and the oneness that God desires for all human beings, oneness with the divine life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and oneness with each other.

This means, among other things, that we ought to see caring about unity - not uniformity - but unity around the gospel of Jesus Christ as an aspect of the church’s holiness, a vital characteristic of the people of God and a principle to which we are deeply committed. It is our common relationship to Jesus that unites us across differences of theology and different applications of God’s word to our life in the world. There are some people in our community who are pacifists because of their faith; there are others who disagree with that reading of the gospel but each person can make their case from the same Bible. I am sure you can think of other examples of people in our community who apply the Bible in ways that are different from each other. When people disagree on application but are working out their salvation with the same Lord, they belong in community with each other because both are called by the same Lord and are loved by the same Lord. And when we care deeply about our unity in Christ, the church signals to the world that a genuine unity among very different sorts of people is possible, if only people would respond to God’s love in Christ.

For example, if Christians in the Republican party en masse, and Christians in the Democratic party en masse, would find imaginative ways to let the world know that they care more about what unites them in Christ rather than what divides them politically and morally - wow, this would be quite a statement to the world.

Another example: what would it look like if your neighbors who don’t know of God’s love for them in Christ could see in your life in your church community a way to be united across differences, a model for uniting around life-giving truth, while allowing for diversity - if they could see in your life in your church community a commitment by default to working out differences for the sake of unity....? I think this would make a great impression on behalf of the gospel.

You may say our lack of unity, our lack of ability to achieve the ideal of unity set forth in the New Testament and the Creed is so discouraging that you are tempted to simply withdraw into the comfort of a homogeneous community and say: “well all of this unity in the midst of diversity is just too hard and it is not really achievable anyway”. But this is where it is important to remember that when we confess a commitment to an ideal (and it is important to remember that each of the four marks of the church are ideals, completed in Jesus but imperfectly experienced through us)- when we confess that the church is one in Christ, and strive towards that ideal over and over again, we are making an important signpost of God’s grace in the world. Really friends, what we strive for and are known for striving for is really important; in a fallen world, striving for oneness is an important ideal to work towards because it leads us in the direction of what matters deeply to God and what is most basic to our redemption and the redemption of the world, a share in the divine life.

Questions for discussion:

1. If you were asked by someone who is an outsider to the life of the church to explain what you think Jesus meant when he prayed for oneness in John 17, what would you say? What part of the fallen human condition does Jesus’ prayer for unity address?

2. Do you think of your life in the church community as a reality that should be in some way publicly available to others? If so, how? If not, why not?

3. Do you agree that the ideal of oneness is an important ideal to continually strive towards? Can you talk in your own words about what life looks like when that ideal is set aside?

4. In the lead up to communion I remarked that the first person to think of when we experience a rupture in our relationship with someone is not oneself or even the other person, but Jesus. Jesus is the most important love that Christians share. How do you think you are doing when it comes to thinking of Jesus in this way? How can we help each other make sure that that thought is to us more than a cliche?

Why Go To Church?

2011-10-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we began a mini-series of homilies on the doctrine of the church. Why Go To Church? This was the title of the first one. Here is a recap:

Today we are taking up the question: why go to church? There are many ways to answer this question but I think one way of getting at the heart of the matter is to consider an example of what sort of thing God intends to happen in the body of Christ and because of the body of Christ. I say, in the body of Christ because it is the church community, referred to as the body of Christ in the New Testament and in other literature of the early church, that is God’s normative means and instrument, through which he shows the world how to be reconciled to God and to one another. I say because of the body of Christ because it is only through the grace of God at work in the community through the Holy Spirit that true reconciliation can occur.

The example I want to consider with you can be a particularly difficult one to get our heads and hearts around because it is the story of a runaway slave named Onesimus and how Paul urges his master, Philemon, to be reconciled to him. As modern Westerners we, of course, would prefer Paul to have commanded Philemon to free Onesimus. I have included below an addendum that is a brief summary of why the New Testament authors did not take this kind of head-on approach when confronting the social relationships common to the pagan Roman world. However, in this recap, I want our main focus to be on how God uses the church as a theater of redemption for the world to watch.

Luke Timothy Johnson has this to say about the church: "The church is, in a real sense, the continuation of the incarnation, the embodied presence of the resurrected Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit... the church is.... the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth."

I can think of no better example of this principle at work than in what Paul prescribes for Philemon, Onesimus and the church that met in Philemon’s home.

Here is a brief summary of what Paul urges but first a little background on this letter:

Background:
Philemon was a Christian leader in the churches that met in around Colossae. We can deduce that he came to follow Jesus through Paul's church planting efforts in this region. He and Paul had become friends, Philemon probably had helped financially with Paul's ministry, and now one of the regional churches met in Philemon's home. Onesimus, one of Philemon's household slaves had run away, perhaps stealing money on the way out the door. Somehow Onesimus ends up coming to Paul who is under house arrest - perhaps in Rome? He becomes converted and Paul desires to see Philemon and Onesimus reconciled. Most likely, Onesimus carried this letter to Philemon, asking for reconciliation, along with the epistle to the Colossians when he returned from being with Paul to home.

The gospel at work!
What is so remarkable about this letter is how Paul goes about leading these two brothers into reconciliation with one another. He does it through a bold series of representational identifications putting into action his words in 2 Corinthians 5:18 where he challenges us to a ministry of reconciliation. First, Paul identifies himself and Philemon as brothers in Christ (v7). Secondly, he identifies himself as Onesimus' father ( v.10). Lastly he urges Philemon to accept Onesimus and be reconciled to him as no longer a slave, but as a dear brother (v.16). Later in the letter he identifies himself with Onesimus yet again when he tells Philemon to charge whatever Onesimus owes him to his (Paul's) account. This whirlwind of identifications all suggest one thing: Paul is boldly representing Christ to Philemon and to Onesimus. As one theologian has put it, Paul is standing in the middle of them with one arm on each of them and drawing them together, mirroring Christ's role as mediator between us and our father. Luther saw in Paul's logic a great picture of the gospel. Paul is taking Onesimus' debt to himself and appealing to Philemon not based on his feelings for Onesimus but on Philemon's feelings for him (Paul). Basically Paul is saying this: reconcile with Onesimus because of your love for me, because of my love for Onesimus, and charge his debt to me. This is rhetorical drama at its best. Paul has painted a picture with words where he plays the role of Christ, thus subtly yet surely drawing Philemon into the presence of Christ and his reconciling love for him, Paul, and Onesimus. Paul has truly appealed to Philemon based on love (v.9) and not law, knowing that only love can produce true transformation and reconciliation.

To put it another way with a slightly different emphasis, in the exhortation to Philemon we have Paul creating an analogy of the gospel by the way he appeals to Philemon to be reconciled to Onesimus. Philemon is beckoned to be reconciled to Onesimus because of Paul’ love for both of them and, implicitly, because of God’s family love for all of them. Just as God has received all of us because of Christ, Philemon is to receive Onesimus. Philemon is being exhorted to give up his rights as a Roman pater familia, or head of household and recognize his identity as an equal to Onesimus in the family of God. One cannot help but think here of the Christ hymn in Philippians 1 where believers are exhorted to take on the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard equality with God as something to be used to his advantage but emptied himself and took on the form of the slave. Philemon is to take on the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, that of a slave, emptying himself of his power, and becoming a slave to his servant, Onesimus.

Onesimus and Philemon are invited, exhorted, to turn their lives over to the work of gospel - they are to be reconciled through the power of the Holy Spirit. The main point I want to draw from all of this is that the place ordained of God for this sort of gospel reconciliation to happen is in the church, the laboratory for communal life before God (see above) that the world watches for clues about how to experience the renewal God intends for humanity. Note very well that this letter is a letter not just to Philemon but to the public gathering meeting in his home; this reconciliation is meant to happen in the context of the public church and because of the church, teaching us that the gospel is meant to be performed physically and acted out physically in relationships within the public body of Christ. We are called and graced by God, through our involvement with church, to be the physical representation of God’s salvation in the world, pointing forwards, in hope, to the consummation of God’s redemptive work. It is through the church that God has put on display for all to see the power of his redemption at work.

Questions for discussion:

1. It is often said that Christians in our society suffer from a consumer mentality when it comes to thinking through our commitment to the physical body of Christ, the church. Do you agree? Explain it in your own words and offer examples.

2. Does it put you in awe to think of the church as a laboratory for the world to learn from? What is the most important sort of thing the world is meant to learn from the church according to the Luke Timothy Johnson quote from above? Based on your conversations with folks from outside the church, what do you think most people have learned from their observation of churches? (I know there are as many answers as people to to this but maybe your own anecdote will be helpful to the group.)

3. If you were to say in your own words why you want to be in the habit of going to church, what would you say?

Addendum:

Let me be the first to say that the letter to Philemon in the New Testament is a difficult letter to deal with, especially in our socio-cultural setting. Apart from simply being so distant from our experience, the letter begs so many questions. Why in this letter and elsewhere does St. Paul not, in the name of God's kingdom, call for an abolition to slavery? Why does he not just tell Philemon outright that he ought not to own slaves instead of begging the two of them to reconcile with each other as equals in Christ. A full answer, whatever a full answer would be, to these questions would take us far afield from what we can do this morning but we can note a couple of things quickly. If Paul had chosen to challenge Rome with an anti-slavery message, the rising Christian movement would have probably been snuffed out like so many other failed slave revolts; indeed, it would have likely been perceived widely as nothing more than a salve revolt, so common and fleeting were they. Instead, Paul in Philemon and elsewhere, sews the seeds of a new society, where social relationships in the church begin to mimic the perfectly egalitarian Kingdom of God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male and female, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all (conflation of Col.3:11; Gal.3:28). We need to remember that because of this the gospel was the most dangerous - in a good way - sort of challenge to the abuses of power built into Roman law; because, rather than confronting authoritarianism and its abuses in a typically revolutionary way, the gospel created a new community within the old world and rendered Roman law ultimately irrelevant to the relationships of the new humanity in the body of Christ, the church.

This is how New Testament Scholar, Gordon Fee talks about the revolutionary power of the gospel with regard to the kind of social relationships in the Roman world where people had power over others: male and female; fathers and children; masters and slaves, etc.:

“Such.... ....was not intended to abolish the structures, which were held in place by Roman law. Rather, it was intended forever to do away with the significance attached to such structural differences, which pitted one group of human beings against another. And the most radical thing of all was that such people - Jew and Gentile, slave and free, men and women - shared a common meal together, itself a cause for cultural shame, and thus celebrated their Lord’s death until he was to come again—which, as 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 makes clear, created considerable tension for the traditional householder. No wonder the world had such difficulty with these early Christians, and why they were considered to be “haters of humanity,” because they so willingly broke the rules - not by tearing down the structures, but by making them ultimately irrelevant! Such people are greatly to be feared as they are the worst of all possible anarchists.
So what in the end is it that makes our present text so radically counter-cultural? What Paul obviously did not do was to demolish the structures and create new ones. What was radical lay in his urging those who are ﬁlled with the Spirit and worship Christ as Lord to have totally transformed relationships within the household.”

Counting The Cost

2011-09-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Luke 14:25-33

This Sunday we came to the end of our summer survey of Jesus’ parables. The parables before us in Luke come up in the context of very sobering challenges to committed discipleship. In the passage as a whole Jesus says things that really set you back on your heels when you take them in. If they don’t set you back on your heels then you are not really hearing them with the force Jesus intended.

A disciple of Jesus must:

* hate father and mother
* hate his or her own life
* carry the cross
* give up all of his or her posessions

What does Jesus mean by all of this? Does the one who said love your neighbor as yourself really mean that one must embrace an asceticism that is equal to self-loathing in order to be a faithful disciple? Does the one who said that he did not come to contradict the law but fulfill it mean quite literally that one must hate one’s father and mother instead of honoring them? Is every person to take a vow of poverty in order to be Jesus’ disciple?

It is in the parables in this passage that we get some clues as to how to read rightly Jesus’ sobering challenges. New Testament scholar, T.E. Schmidt offers this helpful interpretive insight with regard to the parables before us and I paraphrase just a tad: ‘When trying to decide what Jesus means by counting the cost the crux of the issue does not lie in ‘counting the cost’ in order to make sure one has enough resources within oneself... the point is that no matter what calculus one uses, no matter what resources one believes one can bring to bear, those assets will be insufficient to secure one’s status before God. Alternative and decisive action is thus required for everyone....”

Schmidt’s insight is very helpful because he offers a framework whereby we can understand at once the seriousness of Jesus’ call to take up the cross and the fact that we cannot fulfill these demands without the grace that comes through “alternative and decisive action” (i.e. repentance).

So, when Jesus challenges his followers to renounce family, life itself, and possessions his goal is not so much to scare people away but to challenge people to move into a deeper and more genuine love of God through him. It is like a person who is so in love with another that they keep saying things like this to them: “I love you, I want to be with you forever, but I really wonder sometimes if you love me in the same way? I mean you seem like you love your family more than you love me; it seems like you love your stuff more than you love me; it seems like you want to keep your options open. When a lover says this to their lover, normally it is not to dissuade the beloved from committing. Rather, those hard words are said to them with the hope that they will respond in a deeper love that leaves no questions about the trajectory they want for the relationship.

Jesus says what he says here so that we understand what the stakes are in following him. To follow Jesus as a disciple we must learn to renounce idolatrous relationships to the things that this world offers us as identities to be assumed or as security to be clung to. Instead, we must look for our identity to be formed not according to what our culture offers us but according to what Jesus gives us as renewed human beings who belong to a new family and a new humanity.

What Jesus is saying is that we can relate ourselves to the resources that this life offers in such a way as to draw us away from a truly life-giving experience with Jesus by enslaving us to patterns of living that are ultimately idolatrous. Our relationships to family, material things, and “life itself” all offer plenty of opportunities for cheap substitutes for the life God wants for us. Let’s look at family first.

Jesus says unless you hate your family that you cannot be my disciple... well, what is going on here? In the social setting in which Luke recorded this strong teaching of Jesus, family ties were far more than sentimental connections that drew people together for holidays. Family honor was all important. One’s identity was drawn from one’s family. To walk away from family and to follow Jesus would have often been interpreted by the family and the friends of the family as an act of hating one’s family, particularly if the family did not approve of Jesus. The point is that even when the heart of the disciple has nothing but love for his or her family, the family might declare the disciple to be a hater of family and an embarrassment to the family, particularly if the family disapproved of Jesus.

Connections to biological family are still powerful in our socio-cultural setting. Let’s say that in your family growing up that the most important value in the family was to not upset the ‘honor’ of the family, even when the ‘honor’ was propped up at the expense of the truth. The power of this family dynamic may make it hard for you to even hear Jesus and the gospel when the gospel makes it clear that what is truly honorable in life is to confess that you have no honor apart from the honor bestowed on you as a forgiven sinner. In this way your relationship to your family’s honor may keep you from even being able to tell what Jesus is saying because you can’t imagine he would ask for that sort of honesty and humility. For example, the older son in the Story of the Prodigal Son cannot think of honor working in this way but the father points the way to how a true disciple thinks of family honor when he runs out to greet the son who had brought dishonor on the family.... talk about a different calculus at play.... the father in this story says, ‘I don’t care what the village thinks about honor’ - the father knew that true honor is when reconciliation happens no matter how dishonorable were the actions of the son.

Those of us who did not learn or see the gospel in our families (none of us did perfectly anyway), may find it very hard to truly and strongly yearn to have our identity reconstructed in Christ’s new family. Until we do, we will find ourselves repeating destructive patterns with our partners, spouses, other family members, children, or closest friends.

With regard to material possessions:

Jesus wants us to know that an obsession with material possessions, an obsession with keeping what we have or getting more can often become the negative energy that keeps us distant from the riches of his kingdom. This is very tricky because you don’t have to have much to be distracted by material things. Just the obsessive desire to have more can draw our focus away from our need to use the life we have to bless others. Addiction to having more just brings so much static into our lives that we can’t listen to God because our passions are obsessed by wanting to have that handbag we really can’t afford or that car we can’t afford but is something we must have at any cost.... or the extra nights of partying that don’t fit in our budget.... etc. But there are still other, more subtle, ways to allow an inappropriate relationship to money to distract us from faithfully following Jesus. There are some who choose under-employment for all of the right reasons and as a result of a wise process of discernment. There are others who, in the name of a simple life, choose to not work much or choose radical under-employment; in so doing they have become a burden on those around them. For these folks, they have allowed their frustration with the materialism in our culture to lead them into a life-style they have called holy according to their own ethic of personal comfort instead of really asking Jesus how they should live and work.

What about lust? Well lust is especially tricky because Jesus makes it clear that the path that leads us to join our sexual desires with the kind of love that Jesus brings into our lives cannot be walked according to simply what we don’t do physically. We all remember his famous words about lust - you have heard it said that you must not commit adultery.... I say not to lust in your hearts. This teaching of Jesus shows us just how how easy it is to objectify others with our sexual passions without ever touching them; and a life consumed by such lusts - not interrupted by repentance - will, of course, lead us away from the life giving love of Jesus. Well, in those moments of life consuming lust, you turn to Jesus and say - give me your clothes - I repent of objectifying this person in my heart - I repent of wanting sex more than I want to be controlled by your life-giving love.

When we repent of our sins that relate to our desire for material things, when we repent of not breaking with certain family patterns that lead us away from the gospel, when we repent of the sort of lusts that lead us to a really unsatisfying and destructive life - when we repent in all of these areas we are kept on a journey of discipleship, a journey to wholeness... and a journey to human flourishing. In the end, probably the best way to talk about what Schmidt refers to above as “alternative and decisive action” is a life-style of thoughtful reflection upon the truth of one’s life, followed by regular repentance.

Questions for discussion:

1. Can you think of a pattern in your family of origin that has made it difficult for you to hear and live the gospel? Can you think of a pattern in your family of origin that has made it easier to hear and live the gospel?

2. Can you think of times when the desire for some experience that cost money kept you from something you should have been doing? For example, one thinks of Miroslav Volf’s simple observation that it requires effort for parents to make the time and resources to play with their kids and otherwise be good parents, given the plethora of adult distractions on offer in our culture.

3. If you had to put in a couple of non-prudish sentences why God cares about what people do sexually, what would you say? How would you inform your thoughts with the gospel - in other words, how would you say something about sex that could not be said simply according to the Old Testament?

When Self-Righteousness Goes Unchecked

2011-09-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

Luke 18:9-14
Jesus’ parables sometimes paint a picture of what sorts of practices will be welcomed and what sorts are not allowed in Jesus’ kingdom. In the parable at hand we meet a practice that has no place in Jesus’ kingdom: the practice of self-justification coupled with feelings of superiority and scorn for others. In this same parable Jesus holds up an example of what sort of religious practice is welcome in the kingdom. The practice of humility that comes from those who know they are poor in spirit, those who know they are sinners and admit their sin; those who ask for and receive mercy - this practice is welcome in Jesus’ kingdom because it makes for human flourishing.

Some have observed that the two characters in this parable have two different images of God. “The Pharisee’s image presupposed a God who is impressed with pious acts and feelings of superiority towards others.” But the tax collector did not presuppose anything, so truly humble was he. Rather, he hoped for a God who met people with forgiveness when they sincerely asked for mercy.

What image of God do we project in our church or our community of friends, colleagues, or neighbors? In the way we approach our relationship to God and to others do we project an image of God that makes people feel as if church is a place where everyone has to have their act together, at least in a certain kind of way, in order to be welcomed and cared for? One commentator has suggested that the modern-day counterpart of the Pharisee would be welcomed into leadership in many churches today because of his outward piety, generosity with his money and reputation for clean living; no one would seriously evaluate whether or not the same person is unrepentantly prideful and scornful.

Clearly, the image of God that we should desire to project is the image of a merciful God who welcomes sinners, who exalts the humble, who meets us in the messiness and brokenness of our lives and grants life-giving mercy and forgiveness so that we can begin to be restored from our sin and brokenness and more conformed to the love of Christ.

So for you and for me this parable suggests that we should take stock of our approach to God and to others with regard to the sins of pride and scorn. Here are some questions for self-diagnosis:

* Do you find yourself taking a little bit - even if it is just a little bit - of satisfaction when you see someone suffering from the consequences of their bad choices, the consequences of their sin? Perhaps you had warned the same person of the likely consequences of their actions and now they are reaping the consequences.... do you feel compassion or a sense of self-satisfaction? If it is the latter, we must repent of our pride.
* Do you feel like no one has anything to teach you if they don’t know as much as you do about the scriptures or theology as you think you do? If so, we need to take stock and ask God to break us of our spiritual pride.
* Similarly, do you feel like no one has anything to teach you who does not have their life together according to how you define what it means for one to have their life put together? If so then you need to take stock and look at your spiritual pride and ask God to break you of that.
* Does your pursuit of God and the holiness of God lead you to want to push others away from you? Do you need to feel superior to certain sorts of people and distance yourself from a certain sort in order to feel safe and holy? Is so, you need to take stock of your spiritual pride.

In the abstract world of ideas perhaps self-justification can exist without the need to put others down. However, this parable and life in general teach us that self-justification needs comparisons to others like fish need water. If your security in your relationship with God depends on your feeling superior to others then your relationship with God is headed in the wrong direction. Our growth towards maturity can only happen in a community where we abandon the temptation to see ourselves as better than others and repent of that sort of pride if and when it rears its ugly head.

Now, it would be one thing if Jesus had made his point in the language of abstract theological argument but he did not. Instead, he put human faces on the two practices we have been talking about. Clearly, the forceful teaching of this parable is that one practice is welcomed in the kingdom and the other one not. However, it is important, with this parable and all parables, to read them in light of the entire Gospel message. The whole counsel of the Gospel reminds us that there is a little, or a lot, of the Pharisee in all of us and we realize that it would be wrong to demonize the Pharisee, while thanking God that we are not like him! Instead we should realize that the distance between the Pharisee from the tax collector in the temple is the measure of Christ’s cross; Jesus’ love is for them both and for all of us. May the image of God that we project at Grace Chicago Church be a portrait of a God who is truly welcoming of all people.

1. When you feel yourself moving in the direction of self-justification what is usually behind that movement? What prompts that temptation for you?

2. Can you think of an occasion where you learned something profound about God’s love or grace from someone who, in your estimation, knew very little about God in comparison to you? Was this humbling for you? Did you learn something good from that experience?

3. If you feel compelled to express concern to someone about their behavior because you love them and want them to experience growth and human flourishing what guidelines do you put in place to help you do it in a way that is humble and loving?

4. If you distance yourself from someone because of their sinful behavior how can you discern whether your self-distancing is for a good and wise reason or whether it is simply because you feel self-righteous towards that person?

Addendum:
In our post 9/11 world we find ourselves thinking a great deal more, perhaps than we used to, about being secure. In some instances when we feel very vulnerable we think we would like to feel secure at almost any cost. The answer to the question how much should we invest in our security for our families or our nation is not an easy one to answer. Just last night, for example, we had an intruder in our backyard; I called 911 and stayed in for a while just to be relatively sure the situation had become safer before I finished my cigar out back. All the while we kept our 4 year old away from the windows in case the intruder was being chased by armed gang members. Now there are padlocks on the gates.....

I thought about this theme of security with regard to our parable this week as I considered how many Muslims or people who look like Muslims have suffered various indignities and suffering since 9/11 - all because so many Americans are now afraid of Muslims. Here are some remarks by Miroslav Volf along this theme - good food for thought, in my opinion. The following is excerpted from his opening remarks given at a Yale conference entitled, “Are We Safe Enough?”
http://www.yale.edu/divinity/notes/080923/smith.shtml

“As we observed these dimensions of the security situation in which we ﬁnd
ourselves today across the broad spectrum of our life, we also, being at a
theological school, tried to take a look at religious faith and theological
traditions to see what they might have to say about security. And to our
surprise, we found very little reﬂection on such a fundamental issue as is
security. It’s not that we didn’t ﬁnd primary religious statements on security in
the tradition and in the Scriptures in which our traditions are based. In the
Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (or as we Christians call it, the Old Testament),
for instance, the psalmist often prays to God, who is “my refuge.” What is the
talk of God as “refuge” other than relating security to God? Or take a look at the
very end of the Christian Bible—it ends with the image of the New Jerusalem.
And if you read carefully about this New Jerusalem, you ﬁnd it is a city that is
utterly and completely secured that can never be undone.

Security is a very important theme in biblical traditions, but theologians have
slept through their reading of those portions of the Bible. They haven’t taken
up that issue of security, they have not reﬂected much on how what biblical
traditions say about security relates to our contemporary search for security.
So we thought it important for us ﬁrst to reﬂect on our own about this theme
and then to consider what kind of contribution religious reﬂection might make
to the wider debate about security. That’s why security.

But why then vulnerability? Well, vulnerability is obviously the reason why we
pursue security. If we were not vulnerable, the question of security would never
arise. I’m a theologian, and presumably I can say with some degree of
conﬁdence that God needs no security force to protect God’s throne. God is by
deﬁnition inviolable. Human beings are not by deﬁnition inviolable. We need to
have our existence and our well being secured. That is why those lights ﬂash on
the buses when kids get on and off of them; that’s why we lock our homes at
night and sometimes also during the day; that’s why we have a police force,
and so on.

But vulnerability also touches on security in another way: human vulnerability
places a limit on the pursuit of security. It determines in part, or at least shapes
in part, the nature of what it means to be secure. For vulnerability is
fundamental to who we are as human beings. To be inviolable is to be divine; to
be human is to be, and I think is always to remain, vulnerable. You can almost
put it this way, that vulnerability is the essential condition of human life. No
vulnerability, no human life.

Now that has very important implications for what it means to pursue security
and, I think, places certain limits on security. We tend to think that the more
secure we are, the better off we will be. But can vulnerable persons ever be fully
secure? Can we ever create conditions of inviolability? Isn’t it the case that for
vulnerable creatures to be inviolable is a contradiction in terms? And if we could
create conditions in which we would be fully secure, would it be desirable to do
so? Would it be good to create a world of total security? What kind of world
would it be? What implications would it have for freedom and for
unpredictability, which is related fundamentally to our freedom? What
implications would inviolable security have for the interdependence of human
beings, which qualiﬁes us as human beings? Wouldn’t inviolability be the
equivalent of being an individual fortress, a completely independent individual
or a nation? And given human nature, would we not as such precisely be a
danger for others? So these are some of the reasons we chose to deal with
vulnerability and the limits of security.

Two Debtors Luke 7:36-50

2011-08-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

This recap is for the passage of Scripture taken up this past Sunday. The recap is in two parts: 1. Remarks at the Lord's table and 2. The Homily Recap. Additionally, there is a mini-excursus on justice in the homily recap portion.

Remarks at the Lord’s Table:

In Luke’s narrative before us this Sunday we found Jesus asking Simon a very pointed question - do you see this woman? Simon was looking at her but Jesus is suggesting that if he could really see her for who she was that life could be very different for Simon, life could take a dramatic turn for the better. Some see in what she is doing a picture of what Jesus will do later for his disciples, as she washes his feet. Clearly, what Jesus saw was a woman who had been forgiven showing her love in the best way she knew how; and in a very humble way. Simon could only see her as someone who he had put into an unchangeable category. To Simon, this woman was a permanent sinner and never to be a part of his community, let alone a welcomed guest in his home. One commentator has noted that Jesus’ ability to see people - not just look at them - is an invitation and challenge to each of us to desire to see every person as full of potential and to treat them that way. To see each person in the world as someone who God loves, forgives, and desires to experience forgiveness, will help us go a long way towards treating others as God would want us to treat them. When we come to the communion table we should know that God is not just looking at us but that he sees us through eyes that behold the vision of who we are becoming in Christ, as those who receive forgiveness. May we receive forgiveness and show love lavishly in the same way as the woman who washes Jesus’ feet.

Homily Recap:

Today we continue in our reflections on the parables of Jesus as we take up a very short parable. In order to challenge Simon’s vision of the woman in his house Jesus tells his dinner host a story about two debtors, one who is forgiven a great debt and the other forgiven a relatively small debt. He tells the story as a way of inviting Simon to be able to see God’s grace at work in the world from God’s point of view. Sadly, Simon, like you and me, has trouble seeing people the way God does.

Simon sees himself as good and the woman as bad. He sees Jesus as less than a prophet because in Simon’s estimation Jesus can’t see who this woman really is. Simon needs to be able to see everything differently if he is going to be able to understand rightly what God is doing in the world through Christ. At least three things are necessary for Simon to be able to see rightly.

First, he needs to understand that God is first and foremost about the business of forgiving people and calling them to experience that forgiveness through confession and repentance. For Simon, there would have likely been a list of things that God was most concerned about but desiring to bring forgiveness to every person in the whole world would not have been anywhere near the top of the list and maybe not on the list at all. Like many Pharisees in Jesus’ day, Simon likely located the Satan that Yahweh opposed in the oppressive Romans. The thought that God’s salvation of the world would begin with the renewal of sinful human hearts within Israel for the sake of Romans and everyone else would not have been in Simon’s program. How about you and me? Do we see God as being driven by a desire to forgive ALL people? Do we see our family, our group of friends, our neighborhoods, our work places as the spaces where God wants to manifest his desire to forgive all people? When we see the radical universality of God’s desire to forgive we come a bit closer to seeing things rightly.

A parenthetical thought or two about justice and the “day” of judgment:

But what about justice? Isn’t God mainly driven by a desire to make thing just? If we let love define our understanding of what justice looks like then perhaps so. But often what we imagine to motivate God in seeking justice looks something like a passion for retribution more than a passion to see people who do just things because they have been forgiven. However, if we think of justice as defined by love, then we can say that, in one sense, God is all about justice. He will not allow evil and injustice to go on forever and nothing evil or unjust will have a place in the shalom of the world to come. It is imperative, though, to remember that God’s logic and method for making this world into the new heavens and the earth is by populating it with people who have been forgiven and who learn how to love as God loves. God wipes out what opposes his shalom fundamentally through the process of reclaiming sinful people by forgiving them, not by wiping them out. In the end, those who use the dignity of their freedom to finally resist God’s forgiveness, make hell for themselves. That potential for human freedom remains to us but an abstract concept since we don’t know exactly how God deals with people in the end But as a concept it only serves to highlight that God’s way with the world is to keep pursuing people with his love, inviting them to be forgiven.

The second thing that needs to happen for Simon is that he needs to see himself as one who needs to be able to love like the woman loves. But to be able to love in that way he needs to see himself as one who needs to be forgiven in the same way the woman saw her need for forgiveness. Simon would not have seen it that way as is obvious from the narrative. But how about us? Do we measure how much we are approved of by God according to how good we think we are being in relationship to those who we think are not doing well at all? Now don’t get me wrong. When you see something that by God’s grace and through his empowering presence you have done that is good and beautiful you should be happy and thankful and celebrate. But we must take care to recognize that the love that gives birth to such goodness and beauty is always born out of our ongoing experience of being forgiven. To put it succinctly, we must learn to see our fundamental identity as that of forgiven people - not as people who are good or as people who achieve great things. If you see your identity as one who is forgiven, you will do great things. But if you see your identity as one who does great things you will be self-deceived and live a small life in the end. I wonder how many relationships would change for the better if each person in the relationship really understood their identity as one who has been forgiven much?

Finally, Simon needed to be able to see that every person is a person who God wishes to forgive; and he needed to see his community as a place of welcome for all no matter how offensive to him a person’s life and choices might have been. How about you and me? Do we see some people as being permanently off limits to our version of God’s community?

Summing things up....
This entire portion of Luke’s narrative hinges on this one question:
“Simon do you see this woman?” He was looking at her but he did not see her. If he sees her love as something he needs; if he sees her forgiveness as something he needs; then he will see Jesus as not merely a prophet but more than a prophet: he is the one who knows Simon’s heart and the one who can do more than a prophet can do. Jesus can forgive Simon’s sins.

How about you and me? Do we see her?

Questions for discussion:

1. Jesus demonstrates who Simon should welcome into his home and community by welcoming the woman and suggesting that she has shown better hospitality in his own home than Simon has. What does this make you think of with regard to your habits of hospitality? What about the hospitality of our church community as a whole? How can you apply this to your life situation?

2. Do you have trouble loving others? If so, have you thought about whether or not you are experiencing God’s forgiveness deeply and regularly through the discipline of honest confession and grateful repentance?

3. Part of what this parable teaches, in my opinion, is that how we see others impacts how we see ourselves and how we see God. Can you think of an occasion when you stubbornly refused to see someone as God sees him or her but then later came to see them more as God sees them? What was like for you?

4. Do you sometimes use your passion for justice as an excuse for not loving others or holding out grace them?

the Mustard Seed

2011-07-26T12:42:00.001-07:00

Sometimes Jesus' parables are answers to questions whether they are asked out loud or not. The parable of the mustard seed appears to be such a parable. Jesus' had been performing miracles and saying things that made the faithful wonder about God's coming kingdom. When would it come in fullness? By what means would God establish his kingdom? What would God's power look like. Jesus was healing and forgiving sins but at the same time people were still sick and dying, Rome was still in power, and Israel was still under foreign rule. In the midst of all of this Jesus likens the coming of God's kingdom to the size and growth of the mustard seed: a small beginning will yield huge results!

I wonder if Paul thought about this parable as he wrote to the Corinthians about the foolishness of the cross. God's power appeared weak in the cross of Christ but the argument of the gospel is that, through the cross, will come the healing of the nations.

In our cultural setting we are constantly bombarded with images of what counts most for strength. Eros and material riches are often presented in advertising and other cultural mediums as versions of power to be celebrated in a way that invites the celebrant to perform acts of de facto worship, as he fantasizes about having more of that sort of power and what it might yield in his life. Also, as Westerners, political power and military might can become idols as well, tempting us to sideline and domesticate the meaning of Jesus' cross. Or, to think in terms of our ordinary, daily life: winning and argument or being right can many times be more important to us than loving others.

The parable of the mustard seed reminds us that God's ways are foreign to the ways of this world and that we must discipline ourselves to recognize God's ways as holding the ultimate and only true hope for our lives and the life of the world. But what does it look like to learn to recognize and put into practice God's ways in the midst of our mundane lives. Think about the last time you were really mad at someone in the midst of an ongoing argument or conflict. If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that sometimes in those situations we come to a place where our love for the person and our hope for their overall well-being has been put into the background of our concerns, while anger and perhaps loathing have taken over the foreground of our passions and concerns. In these settings we need to start with how God is building his kingdom in the world and work backwards to our mundane situation. We must learn to ask ourselves questions like this: is God really building his kingdom through Christ's work on the cross? If so, what does this mean to us in the middle of our conflict where our rage and self-righteousness have taken the driver's seat with regard to our concern for the one with whom we are angry? We must learn to look at each other through the cross of Christ, recognizing that the power of the gospel is God's power to redeem the world; the mustard seed will prevail.

Questions for discussion:

1. If someone were to ask you how God is at work in the world how would you answer them? Do you think that you might be able to work the parable of the mustard seed into the conversation?

2. We have suggested that the story of the mustard confronts our expectations and redefines the way we think about how God is at work in the world. Can you give an example of how you have changed your expectations of how God is at work in your life and/or the world based on a growing and deeper understanding of the gospel? What do you need more of in your life in order to think more rightly about how God is at work in the world?

3. How can you demonstrate your genuine love for someone while still being in disagreement with them? What sorts of things could you say or do to illustrate that your love for them remains more important to you than your disagreement?

The Sower - Part 1

2011-07-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

We are beginning today a series on the parables of Jesus. One Pastor has put it this way regarding one reason that Jesus spoke in parables: “Jesus tells stories to break up the worldviews of his hearers and open them to a new way of life.”

Let’s stop and think about that for a second. I think all of us can relate to the idea that when we are left just to our own way of thinking about life that we can get pretty wrapped up in ourselves and can tend to imagine that our own way of thinking about things is the best way of thinking about things. But perhaps we meet someone or hear a story about something and get jolted. Then, for at least a period of time after hearing the story, we are challenged about how we think about the most important things in life. We stop, think, and become willing to challenge some long held assumptions and convictions; and we become open to the possibility that we may be wrong about some things.

Let me give you an example:
I can recall a friend of mine who held a certain set of convictions about politics and economics. He was very certain of how public policy should be made with regard to the poor. He basically thought that if someone did not have a job - like someone living in an economically challenged neighborhood like Austin or Lawndale in Chicago - he thought it was simply because they did not want one or had not looked hard enough. For a period of time we worked alongside each other in the Austin neighborhood. During this time he heard story after story from one unemployed person after another, stories of how hard it was for some people to extract themselves from multi-generational poverty. He heard the stories from the lips of those caught in the cycle of poverty. One day, my friend said to me, I am going to have to rethink how I approach policy issues that touch on these issues. I now see that things are not as simple as I thought they were. Now, if any number of people had tried to make a straight-forward argument to this person, trying to get him to at least be willing to call into question some of his most cherished assumptions about the chronically unemployed, not to mention some of his assumptions that undergirded his political and economic views relating to the poor, he would have not been very open to listening. But witnessing a story, an indirect form of communication, well this caught his attention.

Jesus’ parables, sometimes called indirect forms of communication, do just that. They create a thought world where certain things happen in a certain way. Sometimes the events of the story occur in such a way as to surprise or even shock the hearer. One thinks of the day laborer who is hired at the end of the day and receives the same amount of money as those who have been working all day. This story is clearly designed to shock and even offend a certain way of thinking. Sometimes the events of the parable occur in such a way as to simply cause the listener to question what they think they know to be true. One thinks here about the parable at hand, the parable of the sower. Only some seeds grow out of all the ones sown? The story is told to get a person to stop, think and question. How does growth happen? Jesus is ready to tell them how and more on this in a minute.

What seems common to a lot of the parables and to the one at hand today is Jesus’ intent to get the listener to stop thinking about God in his or her own wisdom and preconceived notions and to learn about God and God’s ways FROM HIM, through a discipleship relationship with him.

In this way Jesus is presenting himself in the vein of the OT prophet, confronting God’s people with their lack of sensitivity to God’s ways, their complacency towards his pursuit of relationship with them, their arrogance in assuming they know all they need to know about God because they fancy themselves to have already done and believed what is necessary - the card has been punched, so to speak. Jesus calls such people to repentance and renewal; and it seems that one of his preferred ways of taking up the mantle of prophet was through the telling of parables. Jesus, like the OT prophets, was pronouncing judgment on those who had become oblivious and hardened to God’s ways, while simultaneously calling forth a faithful remnant - even from among the hardened - of those who, in their response to God’s initiative, become the ones through whom God will make his appeal to all people.

Now, back to the sower. This parable asks us to reconsider our way of thinking about how God desires for us to relate to him. There is much to be said about this parable but I want to consider a couple of different applications from it in the time we have left today.

Jesus says that some seeds are choked out when suffering comes. Many of us, whether we would admit it or not, move away from God when suffering comes. Whether the suffering is because of being persecuted for our association with Jesus or whether it comes simply from the harshness of living in a fallen and sinful world, we often focus on the suffering and allow our frustration with suffering to distract us from God’s love for us and the way he wishes to be present with us and through us in the suffering we are experiencing. Sometimes when we suffer, we turn to the literal or metaphorical drug of our choice to drown out the pain; in so doing we not only block the opportunity for God to meet us at the point of our deepest ache and fear, but we also lose the opportunity to bring God’s love to others through our mutual share in the cross of Christ. Suffering is bad enough but allowing it to keep us from seeking God and bringing his love to each other in the midst of our suffering, well, that is certainly worse. Don’t get me wrong, when I visit someone in the hospital I struggle with doubt, cynicism, and a lack of faith. But I go to bring the love of the wounded healer (Nouwen’s phrase not mine) - the same love that rescues me when I am in the depth of despair.

Jesus says that some seeds don’t grow because the cares of the world are given priority over the priorities of God. What about the cares of the world, the lure of wealth, desire for other things? Well, instead of saying something silly, like trying to offer some formula that will ensure you are never distracted from God’s kingdom (e.g. you should never own a car that costs more than x percent of your income, etc.), I think it is is more to the point to ask of ourselves whether or not we imagine growth in God comes automatically to us as passive recipients, or whether we need to work at it like we need to work at anything that is worthwhile in this life. For example, is our attention to God and to actively serving him through our commitment to serving one another in the context of Christian community something that consumes some time and effort, or do we take care of it at the margins? Do we make regular worship at least as much a priority as recreation is to us? Is our commitment to serving and giving to the poor something that occupies an important place in our lives or is it at the margins? But what about grace, you say!? Well, to be sure the love and grace of God is always there for us, calling us to freely come and freely receive acceptance, embrace and forgiveness. God’s forgiveness is, to use the title of Miroslav Volf’s great book: Free of Charge. But the freedom of grace is meant to urge us to be active participants in God’s kingdom - not passive recipients who seem to imagine that what is important about God can be taken care of at the margins of our busy lives where everything else takes pride of place. In this story of the seed that dies because of the cares of this world, Jesus says that life would look different and infinitely better if we called into question and repented of the ways we marginalise our relationship with God. But now, on the other side of his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead we also know Jesus as the one who meets us in the margins, and gently but firmly calls us back to himself so that we might have life and life in abundance! May we respond to his call.

Questions for discussion:

1. Can you think of the last time you felt jarred out of what you later would realize was a period in your life characterized by complacency with regard to your relationship with God? What jarred you?

2. How can we guard against falling into complacency with regard to our relationship with God or other important relationships for that matter?

3. Does suffering cause you to distance yourself from God? What could help you, instead, to move towards God in the midst of trials or suffering?

4. So, we’re assuming there is no one-size-fits-all formula for making sure God and the affairs of his kingdom take their rightful place in our life. How then, can you and I gauge whether the cares of this world are taking too much of our time, energy and resources?

more reflection on the doctrine of the Trinity

2011-07-06T09:40:00.001-07:00

As we prepared to receive communion this past Sunday I shared the following quote:
Rowan Williams: “if salvation is for any, it is for all…. The ‘return’ to the lost, the excluded, the failed or destroyed, is not an option for the saint, but the very heart of saintliness. And we might think not only of Jesus’s parable of the shepherd, but of the great theological myth of the Descent into Hell, in which God’s presence in the world in Jesus is seen as his journey into the furthest deserts of despair and alienation. It is the supreme image of his freedom, to go where he is denied and forgotten…. He comes to his new and risen life, his universal kingship, by searching out all the forgotten and failed members of the human family.”

Someone asked me after the service what Williams meant by the word, myth. Here is Webster’s definition of myth: “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”. I think what Williams means when he talks about the great theological myth of Jesus’ Descent into Hell is that Jesus’ descent into hell, referred to in the New Testament and attested by the earliest of the creeds of the church, gives us a glimpse of what it is like to be God and so it should should shape our practice of “returning to the lost”.

I offered that quote before communion as a follow-up to some of our meditations on the doctrine of the Trinity. At the heart of God’s being is love given and received between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What God desires is to draw others, the lost, the failed, the destroyed, and the excluded, into that very love. This must always be our lead story about God when we represent him to the world in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything else that we know about God must be subordinated to our passion to express and live in his love as best we can to all people.

In the homily I addressed the question of how we are to share in God’s self-giving love in a way that helps us draw others into discipleship relationships with Jesus in the name of the Triune God? I offered a couple of suggestions that were by no means meant to make it seem that they were the only or the best - but a couple of good ones none-the-less.

1.
By being a community that says to the world by how we relate to each other that we do not worship a God of monolithic force who at his core is one who wishes to wipe out his enemies. Rather, we must communicate by how we relate to each other that we worship a God who is a community of self-giving love, who calls forth a new humanity, a new community of people who are learning to live in this very love.

As the church, we are a community of people who are very different from each other but who have come to love each other not because of naturally occurring affinity but because of our common experience of God’s love. Many times, churches, over the years, develop what I will call, “heart trouble”. The community’s arteries clog because of years of unresolved frustrations, bitterness and judgmental attitudes that characterize the relationships of many within the church. The caution for us, and for every church that is called forth to live in and represent God’s self-giving love in this fallen world, is that we must first make sure that we are living in God’s love with each other. We must strive in the Spirit’s power to ensure that we are being forgiving of one another, kind to one another, seeking the best for each other, and not simply for those with whom we share a natural affinity. Our basis for this sort of affection is not more or less than our common friendship with Jesus. Profoundly, our model for this sort of commitment to unity is drawn from God’s triune life, his unity of persons. Let’s note well that many visions of community in this world are based on monolithic expressions of power. For some you have to have certain clothes or a certain style to be accepted; for others you have to be a certain class or ethnic group; for others you have to be morally acceptable on their terms before you are welcomed at their version of Jesus’ table. But the new humanity who experiences the power of self-giving love will welcome all, will welcome the other, and will seek relationships based on God’s love of all people. This new community will draw its life from the love given and received between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and consists of people who are patient with each other and open to dialogue with each other when they disagree; moreover, this community will be a place where people value being in community with each other as much, if not more, than any one individual values being regarded as absolutely in the right.

2.
By being a community where we model to each other the truth that sacrificing for others should be more deeply satisfying than being defined by the consumerist mentality of the spirit of our age. David Brooks, NY Times Columnist, recently wrote a piece in the NYT about the phenomenon of Kiki Ostrenga, the teenage girl from Florida who found stimulation, attention and fame on the Internet by posting pictures of herself online and gathering an enormous following. Sadly she did not realize that she was entering into an online world where eros and violence dwell together in an unholy alliance and where people quickly become objectified configurations of pixels that are used in whatever way the consumer wishes to use the objectified persona. Her fame quickly brought her unwelcome advances, threats and violence. In a Rolling Stone article, a traumatized Kiki, who is now living with her bankrupted parents in her grandmother’s home, is quoted as wanting to know how people actually connect in life: "How do you even meet people?" Kiki asks. "Like, how do you connect with people? In person, it's just so weird, no one talks to me." Even online, surrounded by hundreds of fans, Kiki feels alone. "I feel like a butterfly in a jar," she says. "They'll watch me. And they'll take from me. But no one ever connects." In commenting on this sad tragedy, Brooks writes as follows: “some young people seem to be growing up without learning the distinction between respectability and attention. I doubt adults can really shelter young people from the things they will find online, but adults can provide the norms and values that will help them put that world in perspective, so it seems like trashy or amusing make-believe and not anything any decent person would want to be part of themselves. Kiki’s story is not only about what can happen online, but what doesn’t happen off of it.”

Well, I don’t know about Brooks’ assertion that these sorts of terrible interactions don’t happen offline but the question he raises is provocative: how do we teach our children where true value is found, how good and right relationships can be formed? I would suggest that one of the best things we can do for our children is to pattern for them and for each other a way of life wherein we feel and learn, over time, to be deeply pleased and satisfied by loving and serving others. We must cultivate a discipline of living for the sake of others whereby we become trained to feel and sense that this pattern of living is fundamentally true, good, and right - that this pattern of living reflects the life of the Trinity.

As it is, the spirit of our age sends us many siren songs that tell us that we are only happy, or are at our happiest, when we are being entertained, pleased or titillated. I am not recommending some sort of sectarian/ascetic withdrawal from enjoying the pleasures of culture, good food, good wine, good music, theater, TV, etc. What I am saying is that if we only feel our happiest when we are consuming or being entertained then something is wrong. And if we are yet to find deep pleasure in sacrificing for others then we need to beseech God’s spirit to intervene in our lives. Jesus said famously, where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Similarly, if we begin doing things for others born out of our conviction that this way of life is patterned after the very love of God, we will become the sort of people God intends us to be.

We must ask ourselves what is strong enough to capture the imagination of a young teen with the power of the Internet at his or her disposal; what can compete? It will not be an appeal to live decently and modestly based on religious and moral maxims about the virtues. It will be seeing love in action, the self-giving love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit taking shape in our lives as adults, communicating with our lives THAT self-giving and sacrifice are truly life transforming experiences. May what Jesus said of himself be said of us: “I am among you as one who serves.”

Questions for discussion:

1. Does Williams’ quote about God seeking the lost, the failed, the excluded.... help you think about how you might portray God to those who do not know him? If someone were to say to you, I can’t believe in a God who likes to send people to hell, how would you respond?

2. Do you value being in a church community with people who do not agree with you about everything you believe to be true about God and his world? Do you value being in a church community with people who are learning to be patient with you as you are learning be patient with them? Have you thought much about how this sort of church community is an advertisement for God’s love towards humankind?

3. Have you thought much about how learning to live in God’s pattern of self-giving love can benefit your life over-all? In other words, do you see how this pattern, when it takes hold, leads you better and better choices of what you do with your time and resources? Do you buy the idea that a pattern like this is only learned with practice and is necessarily learned in community?

Trinity Sunday

2011-06-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us
your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to
acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the
power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep
us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to
see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with
the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday. We, together, with Christians all over the world acknowledge in our worship in a focused way that we worship the mysterious one God who exists in three unique and distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Since the early church, preachers and theologians have noted that at the heart of the gospel is the movement of God in redemptive love towards the world he has made and that this movement is a movement of one God in three persons. Today we will consider why this is important. Why is a confession of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit crucial to our understanding of the Gospel?

The mystery of the trinity reveals to us a God who is who is who he is as he pours his love into the other. Before he poured his love into creation, love was given and received perfectly between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Daniel Migliore of Princeton Seminary puts it this way: “that God is the power of self-giving love.... this is the deepest meaning of God’s triune life-in-relationship. This is what decisively marks off the living God from the dead idols. They cannot give life because they cannot love. They cannot love because they cannot enter into communion with and freely suffer for another.... The coming of the Son of God and his sacrificial death on the cross are neither chance happenings nor emergency measures nor out-of-character actions on God’s part. The self-giving love of God is grounded in God’s eternal triune being.... God’s liberating and reconciling activity in the world is the free-outward expression of God’s own eternal life of self-giving love...... “

Let me put it to you this way: what Jesus does, how he lived, how he died, why he died, God’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the reasons for that - the entirety of God’s redemptive work in Christ is what the love that God shares perfectly within himself looks like when it goes to work on our behalf (this is what Migliore means when he talks about the quintessence of God’s self-giving love as the ability to freely suffer for another).

On Trinity Sunday the lectionary points us to the creation narrative, the psalmist’s reflection on it in Psalm 8, and Jesus’ great commission in Matthew, thus reminding us that the same love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, before the foundation of the world, is the love that created, the love that makes a new humanity in Christ, and the love that renews the fallen creation. Moreover, and staggeringly, God has made us to share in this very same love. He has, in the thoughts of Psalm 8, made us to be queens and kings of creation as we receive and give God’s love on his behalf for the sake of the whole world. In the 8th Psalm, when the Psalmist ponders, who are we that God should take notice of us, he does respond by saying that we should sit around and feel good about ourselves because we have been made in God’s image. His answer is that human beings have an awesomeness because, as God’s image bearers, we have been given a job to do and work to share, with each other, and with God. As God’s apprentices, if you will, we are to do God’s work in this fallen world. Other preachers have said what I am about to say before - they must have all had toddlers when they were thinking in this direction - our three year old is really in the “wants to help” stage of life - oh may this continue into the teenage years! There is not an egg to be cracked, a dish to be washed, a floor to be cleaned that she does not want a part in. She beams with pleasure when she has been co-pilot of whatever project has been undertaken. May we respond to God with the same awe and joy as we ask him for an even greater desire to share in his work as the bearers of his image.

Questions for discussion:

1. If someone were to ask you to give them an example of what difference it makes to believe in the Trinitarian God what might you say to them? Does Migliore’s point about God’s ability to share love in his nature help you think about this?

2. Do you think much about the dignity you inherently possess simply because you are made in God’s image? Do you think of this enough when you think of other people?

3. Is there value in thinking about creation and redemption in that order? Does thinking about the fact that the God who created all people help you think about how to start a conversation with someone about Jesus in a different way than you might have otherwise? If so, how?

Ascencion into Pentecost

2011-06-14T10:14:00.001-07:00

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life
to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy
Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the
preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the
earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

We continued this week to ponder the meaning of Jesus’ ascension and considered its theological relationship to the outpouring of God’s power at Pentecost. Jesus had told his disciples, if somewhat cryptically, that it was to their advantage and the advantage of the whole world that he depart from them physically (this is said in different ways in John 14-17). What helps us begin to make some sense of that promise is what God says to us through Jesus’ ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church at Pentecost. Here is how one fine preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, thinks about it:
“No one standing around watching them that day could have guessed what an astounding thing happened when they all stopped looking into the sky and looked at each other instead. On the surface, it was not a great moment: 11 abandoned disciples with nothing to show for all their following. But in the days and years to come it would become very apparent what had happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer, those 11 people consented to become the church, and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them.
The followers became leaders, the listeners became preachers, the converts became missionaries, the healed became healers. The disciples became apostles, witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, and nothing was ever the same again.
That probably was not the way they would have planned it. If they had had it their way, they would probably have tied Jesus up so that he could not have gotten away from them, so that they would have known where to find him and rely on him forever. Only that is not how it happened. He went away—he was taken away—and they stood looking up toward heaven. Then they stopped looking up toward heaven, looked at each other instead, and got on with the business of being the church.”

Jesus’ ascension may at first have felt mainly like an absence and a loss to the disciples but his disciples were soon to learn that Jesus’ human presence with the Father is a sign of judgment and hope for this world. Why judgment and hope? Because in much more than words, God has shown his love for our human flesh by judging and condemning everything that moves against human flourishing. So mysterious is the incarnation, the resurrection of Jesus’ flesh, and the ascension of the man-God that we don’t often think enough of how the ascension of human flesh speaks the gospel to us. God, in Christ, loves the flesh and blood you; he loves the messy you who thinks thoughts you should not think and sometimes acts on them; he loves the you who overeats and struggles with his temper; he loves the you that is impatient with her children. Jesus did not become incarnate, die, rise from the dead, and ascend to the right hand of the father on behalf of an “ideal” you. He did it for the flesh and blood you.

The ascension means judgment and hope. When I say judgment I mean it in the sense that all enemies of human flourishing have been judged for what they are, judged and condemned, defeated and banished from God’s world to come. Growing in God’s wisdom and holiness, in part, consists of being able to see what is judged and condemned and, by God’s grace, to treat it as condemned. Perhaps this is what St. Paul meant when he said we should consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to righteousness (Ro. 6). What I mean by hope is found in the grace that enables us to yearn for Jesus’ triumph as a human being as our guide for this life, yearning for that vision to more and more guide us in how we see what makes for human flourishing in our lives and for those around us. I might rather be self-indulgent and skip an opportunity to serve at the homeless shelter partly because I have not yet grown enough to see this participation in God’s self-giving love as more lovely than doing simply what I want to do and when I want to do it. Sacrificing for others becomes more lovely and desirable to us as we come to see human selfishness as judged and condemned.

So, we see that Jesus’ ascension has brought us closer to God. Rowan Williams puts it this way: “Jesus hasn’t just gone away. He has gone deeper into the heart of reality – our reality and God’s. He has become far more than a visible friend and companion; he has shown himself to be the very centre of our life, the source of our loving energy in the world and the source of our prayerful, trustful waiting on God. He has made us able to be a new kind of human being, silently and patiently trusting God as a loving parent, actively and hopefully at work to make a difference in the world, to make the kind of difference love makes.”

And this is where we pivot from Ascension to Pentecost, when we long to make the kind of difference that love makes. Here again is Williams: “So if the world looks and feels like a world without God, the Christian doesn’t try to say, ‘It’s not as bad as all that’, or seek to point to clear signs of God’s presence that make everything all right. The Christian will acknowledge that the situation is harsh, even apparently unhopeful – but will dare to say that they are willing to bring hope by what they offer in terms of compassion and service. And their own willingness and capacity for this is nourished by the prayer that the Spirit of Jesus has made possible for them. The friends of Jesus are called, in other words, to offer themselves as signs of God in the world – to live in such a way that the underlying all-pervading energy of God begins to come through them and make a difference. If we are challenged as to where God is in the world, our answer must be to ask ourselves how we can live, pray and act so as to bring to light the energy at the heart of all things – to bring the face of Jesus to life in our faces, and to do this by turning again and again to the deep well of trust and prayer that the Spirit opens for us.”

The event of Pentecost itself was a wild day with wild things happening. The main take-away for us, I submit, is not to look for events that look a lot like that but instead to look for the Spirit to enable us to communicate God’s love to others in the power of the Spirit and not according to our own wisdom or power. New Testament scholar, Will Willimon, has great insights into what was going on with Peter and the crowd on Pentecost: The power being offered here is not that of Peter’s homiletical ability to get the crowd worked up into an emotional frenzy or in the crowd’s sincere inner-determination to get themselves right with God.... the story of Peter’s Pentecost sermon is told in such a way as to make it clear that the power at work is God’s power ...the response of the people is neither something they have derived from within themselves or part of their natural human inclination, for they are, as we all are, part of a crooked generation....what saves them is the story of what happened... that God was in Christ was reconciling the world to himself.... they have not been looking for Jesus... God has come looking for them (adapted from Willimon’s commentary on Acts).

And so the challenge to us is to indeed be signs of the hope of a new humanity but to be these signs by humbly telling our stories of how God has sought us out for restoration to himself and, in being restored to him, being restored to our true humanity.

Question for discussion:

1. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you consider that God loves the real you and not an ideal version of you? How would you put this aspect of the gospel message in your own words?

2. Can you think of a time recently when you were demanding an ideal version of a friend or loved one in a way that caused you to be impatient or unloving to her or him? Can you think of a time recently when someone was dealing with you in that mode? What could help you apply the truth that God loves the real you in your relationship to others - what sorts of thing should you do and think about to help you get your head and heart more fully engaged with that aspect of the gospel?

3. What is your greatest concern or fear that comes to you when you think about being God’s sign-posts in this world? Which concerns are well founded and which are, perhaps, based on a misconception you may have of what that means? How can you tell the difference?

Ascension Sunday

2011-06-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ
ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things:
Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his
promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end
of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory
everlasting. Amen.

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son
Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to
strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior
Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of* James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers. - Acts 1

This is the Sunday that we consider the ascension of Jesus. We don’t know too many of the details about Jesus’ life after the resurrection before the ascension but what we are confronted with in the ascension is the moment where the disciples experience the loss of Jesus’ physical presence with them. Interestingly, Luke tells us what was on the disciples’ minds and hearts when Jesus sat down with them just before the ascension; it was a burning question - is this the time you will restore the kingdom of Israel? Jesus gives an answer that was perhaps quite unsatisfactory to their ears, at least on first hearing. What he says is basically this: It is not for you to know the times and periods of history set by God. The disciples, like you and like me, were wanting God to act quickly in bringing promises of redemption and restoration to completion. Jesus says, it is not for you, or us, to know the times, In effect, he is saying, be humble, be patient, and wait.

I was telling someone in the church recently, as we talked about the struggle to believe, the struggle to have deeper faith, that I woke up in the middle of the night about two weeks ago and had this overwhelming feeling of darkness and hopelessness. My feelings and thoughts in my half-asleep state were centered on that very sort of question the disciples put to Jesus: is now the time, God when you will act to bring about final healing to this broken world? This is how it played out in my half-awake mind: God, if the whole point of Jesus’ resurrection is to bring about an end to human suffering, to bring about the world to come where judgment will result in renewal and shalom for those who respond to your offer of forgiveness and newness of life, then why don’t you get on with it?! I’m tired of hearing stories of the suffering of children, of human violence, and of the glorification of human violence, etc. I would imagine that all of us followers of Jesus have these moments when we question why God doesn’t just roll things up, say enough is enough, and get on with the new heavens and new earth. Interestingly, the Scriptures tell us that there was a time when God did think about rolling things up, and rolling them up once and for all, a sort of un-creation. In the Genesis narrative comes this from the sixth chapter, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Let me say as a side note here that I don’t understand the mind of God period and certainly not as glimpsed through this highly anthropomorhpic telling of his sorrow over creating in the first place. However, quickly in this same narrative, we get a glimpse of what God does want us to know and understand about his character when God does not settle on the thought of wiping out his creation but works through Noah to set human history on a redemptive path. Beginning with his covenant with Noah, in every subsequent move forward in the redemptive record of the Old and New Testaments, we find God again and again binding himself to his creation, not giving up and not turning away but pulling everyone and everything towards his goal of new creation and redemption. All along the way he binds himself to his creation more deeply until that means taking the very sin and evil that offends his justice and love the most, absorbing it into himself and breaking its back in the mystery that is Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. And so now, still in my half-asleep moment of extreme doubt and frustration with the way things are, including my own sin and temptations, still wondering why God just doesn’t roll things up already.... but I come to a place where I hear Jesus’ words to the disciples a little differently. “It is not for us to know”, means that it is not just that we don’t know or can’t know but that there is deep mystery here. It is more than we don’t know - we have no idea what we don’t know and we don’t, I think, even know how to question properly about this sort of thing. I mean really, come on, a God who did not need to create, who created to share his love with an immense family of human beings who bear his image.... well, who are we really to say when he should be finished with the progress of the human race and finished with this epoch of human history?

And so this text reminds us that there is a great and tremendous mystery with regard to how long God will suffer with and love the world in the midst of its brokenness.... and in this age we will share with all of humanity a sense of frustration that God is not present in the way that we would like him to be, at least not present according to our deepest desires for wholeness. And so we stand with those who do not profess any faith in God and say to them, we too have these feelings of God’s absence; we too are frustrated with the way the world is but we have learned humbly to recognize in Jesus’ absence a restless hopefulness about what he intends to do in and through us.

What happens next in this passage and in the lives of the disciples is shocking and sobering in a different way because the word to them and to us is that we are responsible to be God’s presence in this fallen world... more about that next week.

Questions for discussion:

1. Luke tell us that the angels told the disciples not to look up for Jesus. Next, we find them in prayer together. Do you think Luke is telling us something about the role of prayer and community in telling the story in this way? If so, what do you think he is saying?

2. Why is it important to acknowledge the questions and frustrations we have towards God and his timetable with human history? Why is it important to acknowledge this, when appropriate, to people who do not share our faith in God?

3. If someone were to ask you why God doesn’t just bring everything to an end and get on with the business of “heaven”, what would you say to them? Where would you start? Would you start with your own life? If so, what would you start to say?

Recap from Tim Bowyer's Homily

2011-05-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Prayer of Calling:
O God, who has grafted us into your own self and prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass human understanding: Pour into our hearts such love and gratitude toward you, that we, loving you and thanking you in all things and above all things, may remain in you and obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

This week, we focused on Christ as the true vine (John 15:1-11), who gives us life and reminded each other that the human response is one of trust and gratitude in His abiding love. The Heidelberg Catechism and John Calvin helped us think about this reality and its implications:

The Heidelberg asks, "What is your only comfort, in life and in death?"
and then answers:
"That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him."

and Calvin reminds us, "We make the freely given promise of God the foundation of faith because upon it faith properly rests. Faith is certain that God is true in all things whether he command or forbid…For in God faith seeks life: a life that is not found in commandments or declarations of penalties, but in the PROMISE OF MERCY, and ONLY in a freely given promise. For a conditional promise that sends us back to our own works does not promise life (Institutes III II 29)

These confessions properly locate the source and content of our faith in God's freely given promise of mercy, which is something that we in no way can earn.

This gives us immense permission to come to God experiencing all that it is to be human, including our personality, and our angst, worry, doubt, sin, ambivalence, and fear, with assurance that we are not somehow mucking up the operation by being ourselves or by being human. For we receive grace from outside of ourselves, namely in Jesus Christ, not from summoning the will to change from within our hearts. The service of the table reminded us of this, as we came with open hands to receive provision of bread and of wine.

I shared a story about climbing a mountain in Eastern Tennessee (Mt. LeConte). As I climbed, in spite of my love for hiking and all the beauty around me there, I felt distracted, tired, and unable to be fully present. I wanted so badly to take it all in, to just breath and to rest and to do what that mountain seemed to be doing with such ease - to worship God, but whenever I started to let my mind and heart rejoice with the open air and the trail . . . there was this nagging sense that I wasn't experiencing the hike like I was supposed to be - that because I was tired and anxious, I was missing out or messing it up.

I noticed that this is often how I approach God and the gospel - I sometimes, even in the midst of Communion, Worship, and living life in community, think that I am not doing enough, or anxious that my mind isn't focused enough or thinking correctly. I come to God without a great feeling of assurance or permission to be myself.

When we read John 15, we often flip the text on end, to make the primary emphasis human responsibility or keeping commandments (v. 10) instead of what Christ has accomplished. We falsely consider this text to be speaking about a contract, as though either we keep our end of the bargain by abiding or we are cut off from the vine. We fail to notice that Christ is not saying, attach yourself! but he is saying "REMAIN in me."

Christ's assurance to his disciples was that God has attached himself to us in Christ and as a vine grower, HE is pruning us so that we might bear fruit. And while there is a connection here between obeying God's word and abiding in Christ, the word is not meant to strike us with fear of God's wrath, but to evoke deep gratitude and abiding trust that the Salvation of God is sure in Christ.

In Institutes Book III, Calvin allows for conflict in the heart of the believer and then turns to hope. He says, "The godly heart feels in itself a division because it is partly imbued with sweetness form its recognition of the divine goodness, partly grieves in bitterness from an awareness of its calamity; partly rests upon the promise of the gospel, partly trembles at the evidence of its own iniquity; partly rejoices at the expectation of life, partly shudders at death . . . because faith does not rest in a certain and clear knowledge, but only in an obscure and confused knowledge of the divine will." He continues, "If you contemplate yourself, that is sure damnation. But since Christ has been so imparted to you with all his benefits that all his things are made yours, that you are made member of him, indeed one with him, his righteousness overwhelms your sins; his salvation wipes out your condemnation; with his worthiness he intercedes that your unworthiness may not come before God's sight . . . We ought to hold fast bravely with both hands to that fellowship by which he has bound himself to us." (Book III, Ch. II 18-24)

This might as well be a commentary on John 15! It is how we ought to come to this text: "ABIDING in Christ" as holding fast to that fellowship by which He has bound himself to us. It is an affirmation that we find LIFE in Him and Him only. Why do we need such a reminder? I suggest that the reason we need such a reminder is that we often look for and are distressed trying to find life in everything else, especially in our own ability to feel assured and good about ourselves. We live in a time and place, where we might easily come to forget our humble state. We are told by advertisements and in a spirit of autonomy and independence, that we can be self-made and find virtue and hope or joy if we search well enough inside ourselves. This text wakes us up to our folly! It reminds us that we are entirely dependent upon Christ, even as a branch is dependent upon its vine. So a posture of humility and gratitude attaches us to Christ and gives us hope and helps us to bear the fruit of a strong connection to the vine.

When we live honestly and dependently upon God in this way, we help build a healthy community that reinforces this honest and self-effacing dependence upon Christ. For when we abide in Him we are also trimmed of our pride and self-interest (branches that do not bear fruit) so that we might bear the true fruit of self-giving love. When we practice self-givinglove, we demonstrate an abiding trust in Christ and his love for the world with a deep gratitude for his mercy. Thus, we remain in Christ by trust, by gratitude for his love and by self-giving love for one another.

Questions:
1. In what ways have you experienced division in your life, whether in faith or in your experience of something else? How do experiences of inner conflict affect your trust in God?

2. Why is it important to let faith trust in the Word, the promise of God, Christ, and not in the self? Is this dichotomy necessary: Either we trust in God or we trust in ourselves? Does the account in John where Christ urges his disciples to abide in him help you think about what gives us life?

3. How does Calvin's permission for imperfect faith ("division of the heart") comfort or disturb you?

4. I suggested that by abiding trust and gratitude, we hold fast to the fellowship by which he has bound himself to us and that this leads to self-giving love. How do we depend humbly upon Christ and form habits of self-giving love?

No Other Name

2011-05-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

This week the recap is divided between the remarks made before communion and the homily. See below. Thanks!

Recap of lead up to Communion (I John 3:16-24)

As much as we might like to say that our belief in God is one thing, while our involvement in community is another, the New Testament suggests that the beliefs of an individual are in dynamic relationship with the communal life of that same person. In order to move along the path of human flourishing we need our beliefs to move us to loving actions towards others; our actions within the context of community, refine, and give shape to our beliefs - our actions also solidify our beliefs.

We are often quick to say things like true belief will result in good acts - we think of the passage before us in 1 John and the James passage where James says I’ll show you my faith by my works. But I want us to take things another step and acknowledge to one another that on many occasions what we do with our selves either helps us to know more about God’s love or not. If I have given myself over to self-indulgent behaviour of some sort to the extent that it is sinful, self-destructive and potentially harmful to others I need to recognize that the pattern of what I am doing is pulling me away from knowing more about God’s love. But if I repent and turn from said behavior, I will need something to fill that void. The gospel suggests that often the something we will need to fill that void is to do loving things for each other. Even if you find one night a month to lavish hospitality on someone because of God’s great love to you the promise of the New Testament is that you will be deepened in your experience and understanding of God’s love. If we take time out of our busy schedules to serve the poor, the promise of the gospel is the same - we will be strengthened in our faith. May the physical nature of receiving the sacrament remind us that what we do with our bodies gives shape to our understanding of God’s love - in the case of communion empty hands and bowing forward tells a story to each other and the world that we are dependent upon God’s grace for our life. So we come now with empty hands and hungry hearts to this feast of Grace.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you imagine that you need to experience love in community in order to think and believe rightly about God? Do you often give that question thought?

2. Do you have a sneaky suspicion that are some things in your life that have you just maybe heading in the wrong direction in terms of self-indulgence? Do you think that self-sacrificial practices might help you regain your balance?

Homily Recap
Acts 4:5-12
This week we continued to reflect upon the earliest ministry of the Christian church as the story is told to us by the apostle Luke in the book of Acts. We noted last week that the earliest preaching after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension happens in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus was deserted and denied by those closest to him, and rejected and crucified by the leaders of Israel. In the text before us this Sunday we find Peter and early leaders in the church being arrested and interrogated by the same religious leadership that led Pilate to murder Jesus. Peter and his cohort have just healed someone and the religious leadership is alarmed. We mentioned last week that it is really very important to hear these sermons in Jerusalem in the context of Peter proclaiming the gospel to the very people who were responsible for Jesus’ death and who were witnesses to it, proclaiming to them that they were all wrong about Jesus, but at the same time insisting that Jesus’ mission to bring God’s love to them could not be stopped by murdering the truth. As we said last week, one way of talking about the the resurrection is to recognize in it the staggering gospel truth that God would not take the no of those who nailed Jesus to the cross as their final answer, that Jesus’ resurrection is to point out that it is yet another example of God’s love not giving up on people. If people, in the end, do not experience God’s love it will not be because of God giving up on them. Miroslav Volf puts it this way regarding God's love: "If God does not find what is pleasing in an object - if human beings have become ungodly - God does not abandon the object in disgust until it changes its character. Instead, God seeks to re-create it to become lovable again... God is not just generous even to the unrighteous; God also forgives their unrighteousness so as to lead them through repentance back to the good they have abandoned."

So, it is in the context of God’s love revealed to the very ones who put Jesus on the cross that we should hear the memorable words: there is no other name by which we can be saved. The religious leaders who put Jesus on the cross are now called by God to be reconciled to him through the Jesus they hated. It is important to note this context for what it is because it helps us, when we ponder the sense in which Jesus' mission is God's unique and final word on his love to the world, to avoid, (a) equating narrow with unique and (b) short supply with eschatological finality. As Rowan Williams puts it, "belief in the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ – for all the assaults made upon it in the modern age – remains for the Christian a way of speaking about hope for the entire human family. And because it's that, we are bound to say something about it. We are very rightly suspicious of proselytism, of manipulative, bullying, insensitive approaches to people of other faith which treat them as if they knew nothing, as if we had nothing to learn and as if the tradition of their reflection and imagination were of no interest to us or God. God save us from that kind of approach. But God save us also from the nervousness about our own conviction which doesn't allow us to say that we speak about Jesus because we believe he matters. We believe he matters because we believe that in him human beings find their peace. Their destinies converge and their dignities are fully honoured. And all the work that we as Christians want to do for the sake of convergent human destiny and fullness of human dignity has its root in that conviction that there is no boundary around Jesus – that what he is and does andsays and suffers is in principle liberatingly relevant to every human being; past, present and future."

The preaching of the early church, including the sermon we have just considered, happens in the context of the Spirit's calling forth and creating a new humanity formed around the risen Jesus Christ. According to the gospel, the inbreaking of the world to come, a new historical epoch, has begun with the church. God’s people now have stories to tell of reconciliation with God and examples to give of how their relationship with Jesus has enabled them to have a part in the divine self-giving love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So when we come to the phrase, no other name, we should not first be thinking of the uniqueness and singularity of Jesus’s revelation of God in the abstract; what we should be able to say is that the same experience of God’s love that we have is what God wants for the whole world. I worry, though, that in some quarters people obsess about these verses in the abstract and don’t worry enough about whether they can offer concrete examples of events in their lives which have come about by no other name but Jesus (e.g. no other name but Jesus enabled me to make a sacrifice for my spouse or friend; no other name but Jesus made me able to serve the poor, or give more of my money away; no other name but Jesus gives me confidence before God when I confess my sins, etc.)

Questions for discussion:

1. Rowan Williams urges that we see Jesus' mission as opening up a new phase of human history - not just the history of one people of one place and of one time. He argues, "questions that puts to us are questions not only about the position of Christianity in relation to other religions, but a question about whether we believe there is something that is true in, and for, all human beings. Or do human beings have different needs and different destinies? Ought we to be saying that what is good for this group is not good for that group? Ought we to be saying that to be a child of God is fine for some people but not for others?" How do you think this apologetic for the uniqueness and finality of Jesus' mission would play with your friends who are skeptical? Do you buy this apologetic yourself?

2. If someone were to ask you what difference does it make in your life that you are a Christian? - what "no other name story" could you tell them in response?

The Weight of God's Love

2011-05-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

This morning we came to this wonderful passage from 1 Peter in which he reminds us that time and history belong to God. “If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have puriﬁed your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.”

Peter reminds his people that their time now is one of exile but that world history is framed by God’s redemptive plan, for Jesus was destined before the foundation of the world and is now, at the end of the ages, revealed for the sake of those living in exile. This is Peter’s way of saying to his people and to us that if we really want to know what time it is we are to look not just at our watch or calendar but at God’s redemptive work in the world. The events of history, whether our personal history, or world history find meaning and hope in their relationship to Jesus’ promise to redeem. In Jesus, God has written a story into the fabric of this fallen world that is from the pattern of the world to come; the threads of that story will mend and repair all of what is now torn, tattered and frayed. It is the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the story of what God is doing in the world is the story that can make sense of our lives, the story that can give us hope, the story that replaces futility with meaning, the story that leads us to human flourishing. The resurrection of Jesus has marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of the world to come (as Paul puts it: “if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation, everything old has passed away, see everything has been made new”). So if you really want to know what time it is don’t just look at your watch, look at Jesus.

Similarly, Peter teaches us in this passage that if we want to know how much our life is worth, we should look at the cross (you were ransomed not with perishable things but with Jesus’ own life). What Peter is saying to you is this: God has shown you how much he loves you in the self-giving love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ and this is to remind you of the precious worth that you and all human beings have in God’s sight. The challenge right beneath the surface of what Peter is saying is this: live into that worth! To be sure, there is sober language here (reverent fear, and language of judgment) but this gravitas is not to make you feel like you are living under a cloud of God’s disfavor; it is rather to get you and I to be jolted out of the sort of complacency that can put us at ease with a life that is less than what God intends for human beings and less than what he has designed us for. As we come to the communion table, is it time for you or I to have a moment of epiphany with regard to what is animating us in our lives? Do we live as though God has ransomed our lives with the life of his son, or do we live as though our life is our own to manage according to our own selfish desires, hedonistic impulses, or whims? Have we determined to have a recreational view of sex at the expense of the sort of relationships that reflect God’s love for human beings.... has our approach to building wealth for the future made us immune to the needs of those around us who have less than we do.... has the hurt we have experienced from the cruelness of others caused us to withhold love and forgiveness from those people and from others too? God wants us to remember that he has more for us. He wants us to grow in self-giving love so that the norm for us will be life in a community that is more and more characterized by the love that we have for one another deeply from the heart (as Peter puts it in this passage), the self-giving love of Jesus.

Addendum:
When we think about what it means to be jolted out of the sort of complacency that can allow us to settle for less than what God intends for us it is important to get our heads around how God wants to shape the affections of our heart. I suggest that the parable of the prodigal son gives us some good clues as to what God wishes to teach us about not settling for a pattern of sinful, self-destructive, and selfish behavior. In the parable, the son remembers there is a better life and imagines that he can get a bit of it back by coming home in the role not of a son but of a hired hand. It is the father in the story that will have nothing less than his return as a cherished son. Miroslav Volf’s words about the father in the story are memorable: "....eyes that searched for and finally caught sight of the son in the 'distance' tell of a heart that was with the son in the 'distant country'... the father kept the son in his heart as an absence shaped by the memory of the former presence. When we say things at Grace Chicago Church like, “God is not hanging over your head in a cloud of disapproving judgment”, the goal is not to make it seem as if it does not matter what we do or how we live. We are simply suggesting that a better way of responding to the gravity of God’s love for us is by training each other and ourselves, to respond to the weight of his love, instead of imagining that what God wants from us is so much cowering and grovelling. Again Volf is helpful: "If God does not find what is pleasing in an object - if human beings have become ungodly - God does not abandon the object in disgust until it changes its character. Instead, God seeks to re-create it to become lovable again... God is not just generous even to the unrighteous; God also forgives their unrighteousness so as to lead them through repentance back to the good they have abandoned."

Questions for discussion:

1. When you think about “what time it is” do you think hopefully about what God is doing in the world or do you get stuck in a pessimistic frame of mind and feeling of heart? What can bring us to hope - what sort of practices, etc.? Does it surprise and/or annoy you that God wants you to move from despair to hope?

2.. What sort of habits might you ought to put into place or re-solidify that can create occasions where it will be more likely than not that you are called to take stock of your response to the gravity of God’s love for you?

3. Can you think of an “ah-ha” moment that you had regarding the depth of God’s love for you? Did this epiphany help you think about some aspect of your life differently than you had before? If so, how?

4. If a friend came to you and said I am having trouble figuring out whether my goals around building wealth have distracted me from the needs of those who have less than I do and asked you to help her figure out whether or not that was the case, what sort of conversation might you have? What is the sort of prayer you might craft for her to use in her discernment process? What passages of scripture would you encourage her to reflect upon?

The Good Shepherd (Part One and Part Two)

2011-05-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

Greetings Friends. This past Sunday Rev Erin Babb, Chaplain at Children's Memorial Hospital, preached at communion. I preached after communion. So, the recap is divided into two parts below. Part One is Erin's. Part Two is my talk. If you make comments, I'll be sure to have a way for Erin to chime in. God Bless you.

Part One (Erin Babb) Psalm 23 and John 10:7-18
This week, let us take time to reflect on the character of Christ in the Gospel of John. As Jesus illumines his metaphoric identity as the Good Shepherd, we learn more about Jesus’ love for us. “Good,” in this context, isn’t meant to be the opposite of “bad.” The Good Shepherd is the best shepherd that you could imagine. He doesn’t simply do the job of tending to the sheep. This shepherd cares for the sheep and wants only the best for them. He watches over them and protects them, and would even lay down his life in their place to keep them from harm.
In the first half of 1988, Catholic theologian, Henri Nouwen penned a journal during one of the most dry times of his life. Later on he published these writings, in hopes that his pain and spiritual struggles might help others dealing with similar things. He titled the book “Inner Voice of Love.” As he worked through his struggles he found new insight into our relationship with God.
“God says to you, ‘I love you, I am with you, I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God’… Remember you are held safe. You are loved. You are protected. You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you. What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.”
With the shepherd guiding us along the way, we can trust in the journey at hand. Jesus’ deepest desire for us is that we have life abundant (John 10:10). The shepherd watches over and guides the sheep, not only to protect them, but to feed and renew them along the way. This is not a job, but a relationship. Jesus wants to know us and to be known by us. He laid down his life for the sake of the sheep to have abundant life.
Questions for discussion:
•This is an intimate image of Christ’s interaction in our life. Is that intimate knowledge comforting or disturbing to you? Is there another image for Christ’s relationship to us that you prefer (a parable or other metaphor)?
•With the love of God supporting us, what is our responsibility to others, in light of that love? Does it change the way we interact with people we meet? Our families? People at church?

Part Two (Bob)John 21:1-10; 15-19

And now in this portion of John’s gospel we meet the resurrected Jesus doing what good shepherds do, caring for the sheep. This portion of John’s Gospel is sometimes referred to as a second-ending and impresses New Testament scholars as being carefully crafted in order to draw attention to what happens in the scene. As one such scholar puts it, the curtain falls and then comes back up again telling the reader to pay careful attention to what is coming next. It is as if John is saying, “I have one more thing for you to ponder and when you reflect on what you are about to hear with your ears and picture in your mind’s eye, you will come to understand the heart of what it is that Jesus wants his followers to know and do.”

Richard Hays, of Duke Divinity School, calls our attention to the charcoal fire in the scene. He points out that the word for this fire in the common Greek, in which John is writing, is used only one other time in the entire New Testament and that is when Peter warms his hands by the charcoal fire just as he has betrayed Jesus three times. Hays remarks: “Peter drags himself up shivering on the beach and finds there a ‘charcoal fire’.... We should imagine the camera zooming in and lingering... “charcoal fire”... the fire is a source of warmth in the chilly half-light but it also illumines what is dark. The fire evokes again the scene of denial, the scene where once Peter stood by the fire and said, I am not his disciple.... the past comes rushing back. Perhaps in the distance we hear a cock crowing.”

Note, however, that Jesus calls forth Peter’s past in the context of restoring him for the future. The past is not called out to paralyze Peter in shame but simply to enable him to be reconciled to Jesus and to his vocation as a shepherd of the sheep. Peter has returned to fishing, living his life as he did at the beginning of John’s gospel, as if he had never met Jesus before. Jesus, by referring to him as Simon, the name by which he was first known to Jesus before Jesus changed it to Peter, is an indication that Jesus recognized what was going on - Peter had moved backwards. He was no longer focused on fishing for men and women - just fishing for fish. But Peter’s move backwards is not allowed by the good shepherd of the sheep. As Rowan Williams puts it - Rowan Williams, formerly known as the Archbishop of Canterbury - now known as the guy in the funny hat who married Prince Wiliam to Catherine Middleton - “Thus the memory of failure is in this context the indispensable basis of a calling forward in hope. Peter, in being present to Jesus, becomes – painfully and nakedly – present to himself: but that restoration to him of an identity of failure is also the restoration of an identity of hope. The presence of Jesus, still faithful, still calling, inviting his followers to love him, opens out the past in grace.... On the far side of the resurrection, vocation and forgiveness occur together....”

I want to suggest to you that, in a sense, this is the crucial moment for the foundation of the early church because this is the moment with the leaders’ mission goes forward in the context of failures forgiven. Forever more Peter is to see himself in light of God’s grace, thus signaling to him and to us what should be the tone and content of our mission as we continue to preach and live the gospel in this broken world. The late Williams Sloane Coffin, who preached for years in New York City said this of the gospel:
"At issue is whether there is more mercy in God than sin in us. And according to... ... just as love is stronger than death, so forgiveness is stronger than sin. That may be the hardest thing in faith to believe."

Bothers and Sisters and friends: God knows this about you and me: that left to our own devices we will reduce our lives to living in the past; we will define our lives by our failures; left to our own frail capacity we will be stingy with God’s love and grace towards others as well. However, when we let Jesus speak to us in the way he spoke to Peter we are called from the past into the future of God’s love and we are then able to give that love to others.

In John 10, Jesus preaches about what a good shepherd does, he lays down his life for his sheep. In the crucifixion, Jesus portrays what a good shepherd does as he lays down his life for the sheep. In this scene with Peter and the other disciples, Jesus creates more good shepherds by giving them back the past as a foundation for God’s future work in the world and they are potent signs of God’s grace for all to see.

Questions for discussion:

1. What do you think it means that we are to show our love for Jesus by loving the sheep? Do you pray about and think about this aspect of being a disciple of Jesus as much as you should? Is it intimidating to you to think that this is a part of being a disciple of Jesus? If so, why? How can you deal with the intimidation factor?

2. Do you feel that you sometimes allow the past to define your present and speak into your future in toxic ways? Can you think of an occasion when you believed more deeply than you do now that there is more mercy in God than sin in you? What helped you to believe the Gospel more deeply on that occasion?

Easter Sunday

2011-04-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s once and for all statement to the world that he cares about this world and our lives in it. Frankly, it is easy for me to think otherwise. How about you? Just turn on the radio and your ears fill with awful stories of human suffering and much of it happens to babies and children which is especially hard for most of us to bear. When we see and/or experience terrible suffering we cry out to God sometimes with our fists in the air - God, why don’t you do something!? This is often the voice and tone the Psalmist used. God, wake up! and work for the cause of righteousness says the Psalmist in one place; and in another place the Psalmist cries out, “my God my God why have you forsaken me”. Remarkably, those words from Psalm 22 are on the lips of Jesus as he takes on the sins of the world and the full brunt of the physical agony of crucifixion, making it clear that the cross is a God forsaken place. It is important to remember that as we celebrate Easter. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God says many things to us. What he doesn’t offer in the resurrection is a polished treatise defending his benevolence in the face of evil and in response to all of our frustration with him and this world. Rather, his statement in the resurrection is the person of Christ who, on the cross, brings God into the mess of this fallen world for the purpose of redeeming it. The resurrection is not less than God’s vindication of what happened to Jesus on the cross. To paraphrase theologian Mike Lloyd, “God owns the cross of Christ and it is where he deals most powerfully with the evil and sin in world, defeating them in Christ's sacrifice. On the cross God entered the world of chaos, evil, failure, and defeat and claims the entire arena to be a place where he is at work. It is in Jesus’ moment of being forsaken by the father that God's love is most powerfully at work. It was when the hopes of the disciples were dashed that their salvation was being accomplished. And when we experience failure and chaos in our lives and we imagine that we have come to a place where hope is irretrievable God says NO! Quite the opposite is the case: through God’s son on the cross, God has entered into the chaos of this fallen world so that it is not an alien place for him. So, whatever the case may be for us (e.g. whatever terrible thing befalls us because of evil at work in the world, or, whatever calamity we have brought on ourselves through the selfishness of sin - God is not alien to us in these circumstances). His presence with us is for the purpose of reconciling us to himself and doing something new in our lives. His resurrecting love is always there for us in the very worst of circumstances.” And this is a fitting thought as we move into the baptism portion of our worship service. Through the cross, God is not alien to our experiences of hopelessness, pain, suffering, and doubts; he is not alien to our dark nights of the soul. In baptism today we portray the promise of God to always be near Matthew Bushman Jr. and William Lovell - there is no time in their lives where his love will be alien to them and that is one thing baptism says to us always, but quite loudly on Easter on Sunday!

We have already taken comfort that the resurrection is God’s vindication of the cross; now I want to talk with you about how the resurrection is not most importantly an encouragement about life after death but rather, in the words of NT Wright, an encouragement to “bring the life of heaven to earth, in actual physical, earthly reality.” In this way, we see the resurrection of Jesus as the beginning of God’s answer to a portion of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples: “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”. To be sure, the resurrection is an encouragement that our bodies are meant to be made new so that we might reign with Christ in the world to come; this is tremendous comfort to us when we face the prospect of our own death and when we are faced with the death of loved ones! But most of the teaching about the resurrection in the New Testament is focused on the difference Jesus’ resurrection makes in our lives right now. The resurrection is foremost God’s encouragement to us that the new creation has begun in the resurrected Jesus Christ.

This is the point of what Saint Paul was saying to the church at Corinth and through them to us. He is not saying get me out of this terrible world God - give me heaven; what he is saying is that your work here in this fallen world is not in vain. Again, to quote NT Wright on that passage “What you do in the present - by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself - will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable until the day we leave it behind altogether.... They are part of what we may call building God’s kingdom.... You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff … all of this will ﬁnd its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.” (From his book, Surprised by Hope)
I don’t know about you but I need the promise of the resurrection to meet me in the moments where I am tempted to regard all my work here on this earth as vain and pointless. I need God to speak to me through the resurrection when I am tempted to turn in on myself and walk away from my responsibility, as Jesus’ disciple, to bring the life of heaven to earth. The power of the resurrection speaks to us at the point where we are about to give up hope and say so what!?! God knows us - he knows that all too human moment when we say in great frustration, "what difference does it make if I serve God and others in the self-giving love of Christ... look at what a mess things are... what difference will my faithfulness make?!".

The gospel speaks to us in these moments of our self-absorption when either simple selfishness or despair have choked out the hope that spurs us on to serving others in the love of Christ; when we say to ourselves, "what difference does it make if I confess my sin"; when we say to ourselves, "what difference does it make when our children need us to make sacrifices to spend good time with them during the week"; when we ask ourselves, "what difference does it make when my friend needs me to help her with a problem"; "what difference does it really make if I leave work early and go serve at the homeless shelter; what difference does it make, really, if I sign up to tutor a child". In all of these moments, when we teeter towards apathy or unbelief, the resurrection speaks to us this truth, as one preacher has put it - and I paraphrase a tad: “ the deepest truth of the universe is God’s indestructible love as shown forth most powerfully in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead... and because of that great power, even the smallest act of service or compassion is worthwhile, a way of being in contact with the truth. It may seem to make little difference, it may not guarantee success as we usually understand it, but it becomes part of the current of truth flowing eternally against the lies and injustices of a world in which our own interest or safety takes precedence over everything (Rowan Williams from his Holy Week Letter).”

Questions for discussion:

1. How much of an impact does the suffering in the world have on your faith and faithfulness? Can you think of examples of terrible things that happen in the world that cause you to call into question whether God is at work in the world? Can appropriating the truth of the resurrection help you build a bridge back to faith in these circumstances?

2. When Mike Lloyd (see above) says that, on the cross, God was entering into the chaos and pain of the world and goes on to say that this chaos and pain is not an alien place for him he obviously thinks this should be a comfort to us. Is it a comfort to you? Can you imagine God wanting to be near to you in moments where you are out of control and really at your worst? Should you be able to imagine his love for you and his nearness to you in those moments?

3. Do you think that you sometimes fall into a place where your own interest or safety takes precedence over everything else (see Williams quote above)? When thinking about your spiritual formation, what sorts of disciplines (individually and in the context of community) can you embrace that would help you avoid placing your interest or safety before the mission of the Christ’s church?

Palm Sunday: Exceeding our Expectations

2011-04-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

It was the great author JRR Tolkien who coined the word eucatastrophe; he meant by the word this - an event that occurs at the end of a story that suddenly and amazingly results in the well-being of the protagonist. Tolkien surely had many occasions to point out eucatastophes in his myth-making for which he is famous and for which so many of us are extremely grateful. However, what I want to remind you of, tell you for the first time, and bring to your attention is the way he applied this word to the Gospel story. Tolkien said that the incarnation was the eucatastrophe of human history and that the resurrection was the eucatastrophe of the incarnation. Bless him for putting it this way. I can think of no more succinct, yet, imaginative way of seeing the really big picture of what Jesus came to do than as a wonderful eucatastrophe; Jesus came to undo the work of human sin and selfishness.

Rowan Williams puts it this way in his comments on original sin:
“In humanity's history, the ingrained habit of turning inwards, turning in upon ourselves, is passed on. We learn what we want.... by watching someone else wanting it and competing for it. Before we begin to make choices, our options have been silently reduced in this way. To speak of original sin.... is to observe that our learning how to exist is mixed in with learning what does not make for our life or our joy. And every failure and wrong turn in the history of a person as in the history of our species locks us more and more firmly into ourselves. No wonder we drift further from peace, become less and less free to give. Something needs to reverse the flow, to break the cycle..... Only a human word, a human act will heal the process of human history; it isn't ideas and ideals that will do this, but some moment in history when relations are changed for good and all, when new things concretely become possible."

Jesus’ came, in the mystery of the incarnation, to reverse the trajectory of human history and to set us on the path of human flourishing which God has always intended for us. He came so we might overcome everything that diminishes the glory of our humanity so that we might be fully who we were made to be.

I got a letter recently from someone who shared with me a story that I have permission to tell you. He told me that he had been struggling with a certain pattern of acting and thinking that he knew to be sinful. His struggle was of the sort that it was known only to him, yet he could see its effects on those around him. He realized, sadly, that this pattern of living had gotten the best of him and was causing him not to have the love or patience that he wanted to have for those dear to him in his life. He said that he no longer felt the desire to confess, repent or ask forgiveness because he thought to himself, “what good would it do?”. Then he said he found himself sort of backed into a situation where he promised to do something sacrificial for a friend. He said that, at first, it felt like drudgery to help but that his heart changed when he saw how happy and grateful he had made his friend. He said that was a turning point: “I was happy too and then I thought to myself that this is what I really want to feel like more often than I do. I thought about my besetting temptation and sin and I thought I doubt I will be perfect when I bring all this back to God and ask him for his forgiveness and help but if I can just make some progress and feel a little more like I did today when I was helping this other person then I will count that as worthwhile.”

Though the person who shared this story just recounted does not use the words human flourishing he certainly describes it. This person has come to see a certain pathology at work in him that he recognizes as robbing him of human joy and he wants more human joy instead of it. That he realized all of this in relationship to loving others... well, I can’t recall a better way of recognizing human flourishing than by being able to tell what it is when seen in relationship to others - Paul’s remarkable words describing the profound interconnectedness of Christian community come to mind: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

When our capacity to love others as we ought to is diminished by certain patterns of thinking, doing and being, we have a pretty good clue that we might just be dealing with sin doing its destructive work.

I share this story on Palm Sunday to remind us of the deep work that Jesus is setting out to do by entering Jerusalem at the beginning of holy week, what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. As Jesus prepares for the cross, he is in the midst of working out a eucatastrophe so that we might be fully alive to the love of God in every nook and cranny of our life, especially in the places that are secret that all too easily can be places where we have given up hope. Let the sacrament of communion remind us that “The glory of God is a human being fully alive (Iranaeus).”

On Palm Sunday we re-enact the initial enthusiasm among Jesus’ contemporary followers - he is heading to Jerusalem and he is beginning to act in ways that indicate that he might just be going to take King David’s throne for himself - maybe he is the Messiah who so many wanted to come and deliver them from the oppressive Romans. Ben Witherington writes of this moment as follows: “Notice this peaceable king does not come into town driving a Humvee, or riding on a war charger as a conquering hero. He comes to declare peace for the world, not war on the Romans. And here is a profound truth--- Jesus did not come to meet either his earliest followers expectations or ours. He came to meet our needs. Oh but the expectations were exponential. They were off the chart.... The cry Hosanna (see Ps. 118.25) seems to in fact be a plea in Hebrew meaning “Save Now!”. The crowds were crying out for a particular kind of political liberation it would appear on the spot, but Jesus had another idea in mind entirely of what made for peace, what made for pacification of our warring madness, what made for liberation and redemption. The real enemy was not Romans or Greeks, or foreigners in general. The real enemy lurked within the hearts of every fallen person—it is called sin.”

In the course of our mundane lives how many times do we demand that God meet our expectations, rather than slowing down and asking him to help us understand our deepest human needs in light of the Gospel, so that we might ask him to meet them and ask him to shape our daily lives according to their priority - according to our deepest human needs instead of making our expectations what is most important to us. Let me offer an example of what I am trying to get at. Recently, we have been stressed and anxious about what we will do about our daughter for school when she is ready for kindergarten. Pretty soon you come to realize that this issue will consume about all the time you give it. And pretty soon it becomes clear that that issue can become what you proclaim to God to be the most important thing going on in your life.... but really what you have missed along the way is enough time and energy to love someone who needs love, serve the homeless, or ironically play with your child. Or, take another example: you may be in a situation with colleagues or others in your community wherein you are consumed by anxiety over some aspect of your relationship with them. Maybe you are overwhelmed by worry that you are not valued properly at work or consumed by whether or not certain people like you. Very easily we can take these concerns and worries and proclaim to God that we expect him to change these situations in our favor. We get so worked up about these worries and concerns that they become pretty much all we talk to God about (note well: God cares about all of this stuff and we should pray about it but he cares more deeply that we be conformed to the image of Christ). Meanwhile he wants us to place a bigger priority on praying for and yearning to be the very incarnation of Christ’s love in all of these contexts; we have trouble seeing that because all we can think about is how much we want him to change our circumstances to our favor. Rather than asking to be made new from the inside out we settle for yearning for and praying for a mere rearranging of our circumstances and leave it that. Craig Barnes puts it this way: “Whenever pastors gather for continuing education seminars, it isn’t long before an expert gets up to warn us that people resist change. That isn’t exactly true. What we all resist is unwanted change. But most of our wanted changes are really nothing more than efforts at rearranging our lives. We leave one job and start another with a similar company that only has a different
name. We sell one house and buy another. We stop dating one person and start
dating someone else. Things may look a little different for a while, but it’s the
same person who keeps showing up in the mirror. Sometimes people begin to look into spirituality thinking it’s another opportunity to rearrange our lives. But he wants to change us, transform us, and give us a new identity. He wants to give us his own identity as a beloved child of God. According to the Scriptures, everything is now different. The old has passed
away. Behold all things have become new. You are no longer manipulated by
guilt, compulsiveness, hurts from the past, or fantasies about the future. All of
that is in the past. Your life is free for a new future.”

May God grant us during this Holy Week the grace to long for transformation instead of mere rearranging.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you often think of how well you are appropriating God’s love and grace according to how well you love others? Can you think of one or two friendships or family relationships which, when looked at in this light, could offer you a good read on how you are doing with God? How would you measure how well you are doing?

2. What sorts of expectations have you put on God so as to cause you to not think and pray enough about your deepest human needs in light of the Gospel?

3. If someone were to ask you what God cares about in this world, how might the conversation develop if you began by quoting Iranaeus’ maxim: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive”? Would it develop differently than if you started the conversation by saying something that is equally true, like.... “God hates sin”? (This discussion question is meant to spark conversation about how we tell others about the love of God in Christ.)

Disturbed, Weeping and Deeply Hopeful

2011-04-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

New Testament scholar, Scot McKnight, tells the following story: “A parishioner once informed me that if he had been in Jerusalem when Jesus was put to death, he would have been crucified along with him because, as he trumpeted, ‘I would never have allowed my Lord to be even arrested without fighting for him! Nope, not me. I’m not like the rest of these faint-hearted Christians!’ The claim astounded me. His self-promotion was masked as self-perception. Here was a 60-year-old who hadn’t looked in a mirror for a long time."

In the same article entitled Spiritual Snobs, Scot argues, “If we judge the children of Israel, whom the psalmist says had hard hearts, we also must judge the apostles. After watching Jesus feed a village of people, the disciples are challenged to think through what Jesus should do -- he’s afraid to send the crowd home lest they collapse on the way. But Mark says the apostles had hard hearts (Mark 8), so we condemn them for their faithlessness. But should we?” McKnight thinks not. “When we look within ourselves or at others, we are prone to self-promotion or blame or judgment. When we see who we really are, we see hearts struggling and minds fighting and souls doubting. And then we are like both the children of Israel and the apostles.”

Lent has been a time when the readings from Scripture have invited us to take a long, hard look at ourselves and the fallen world in which we live. We have considered the faithlessness of God’s people, particularly the wilderness generation and we have been reminded of the steadfast faithfulness of God in spite of their hard hearts. In terms of our spiritual formation it is very important for us to look at our failures and the failures of others in the light of the gospel in order to avoid the temptation to spiritual snobbery that McKnight warns against above. It is all too easy to look at our failures and the failures of others and react in self-righteousness and anger, or in self-loathing and despair (particularly in the case of our own failures). I wonder how different things might be if our emotional energies and passions towards God, each other, and ourselves, became mainly thoughts and passions about God’s power to forgive, and power to make us new, rather than thoughts and passions of self-condemnation and harsh judgment of others....?

Also, it is tempting to imagine God as a spiteful adversary when our sin and lack of repentance is leading us away from human flourishing; instead the gospel reminds us that he opposes us because of his great love for us. The discipline of God never comes from anger and is always for the purpose of reminding us of his love for us

* “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves (Hebrews 11:6)”
* “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13)”

Now, at the end of Lent, the readings of the common lectionary invite us to set our gaze upon the promise of God to deliver. In Ezekiel we meet dry bones that are given new bodies and new life. In the Gospel of John we meet Lazarus and are given a foretaste of the promised resurrection. These readings remind us that our faith grows stronger not when we try harder but when we put our hope in God’s power and resources and not in our own. This comes from our new birth in the spirit and we grow in our new birth when we turn daily from our own resources and learn to rely on God’s power and not our own. In response to Lazarus’ death, Jesus was disturbed, he wept, and he was deeply hopeful. He knew he could raise the dead. May this be our response to our sin, or any tragedy - to be disturbed, saddened and deeply hopeful, for the God who raised Jesus from the dead has bound himself to us in unconditional love.

This is familiar territory for those of us who have been versed in Christian teaching for a while but our hearts are prone to wander and so every once in a while it is good to remind each other of the basics.

Discussion Questions:

1. When we sin or when those around us sin it is hard to respond in a way that is shaped and informed by the Gospel. Can you offer three practical approaches you might take with yourself that will lead you to a place where you are more likely to have a gospel shaped response to your failures and the failures of others?

2. Is it easy for you to think of God disciplining you with a 100% loving and well-intended purpose in mind? For many of us this is a tough concept. If it is tough for you, does anything leap to your mind as to a reason for why it is a hard concept? For those of you who don’t have a hard time with this, share a story or two that will help us understand how you have been able to grasp God’s goodness in this way.

3. What role does Christian community play in the way you think of God’s discipline?

Blind Man Sees

2011-04-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

In the story of the blind man who is healed it is hard not to think of that old saying, no good deed goes unpunished. Jesus heals the young man; joy and wonder come upon him. Next comes perhaps a desire to celebrate, but before he can plan a party he finds no one who will celebrate with him. The response of his neighbors, friends, and family are a poignant reminder to us that in this fallen world even our experience of joy in the wake of God’s grace is not necessarily shared by those among us, and sometimes not shared by those dearest to us. What happens with the young man’s parents is perhaps the most painful aspect of the unfolding drama of the story. They distance themselves from their son by saying, “he is of age, let him answer for himself”. There should have been light and joy in the community, and a celebration with friends, neighbors and family. With the religious leaders there should have been at the very least a joyful response to a blind man who has been healed. But instead there is only darkness, anger, fear and gloom.

But let’s turn again to the blind man who can see. There is something so raw and so guileless in this young man’s response to Jesus. The drama of the narrative, in the way it unfolds, invites us to see the man’s faith deepen as he sees the darkness of those who oppose Jesus. The man who had been physically blind is now the only one in the story who can see God’s light at work in the world. The contrast between seeing and not seeing is presented as an either/or existential crisis, light or darkness, life or death. The confession that Jesus draws from the young man towards the end of the story reminds us that when Jesus is recognized as God’s Messiah that there will be light; when he is denied, there is only darkness.

Noted author and preacher, Fred Craddock, invites us to see ourselves in this story:

”Jesus heals the man, disappears from the narrative and reappears at the end to receive, confirm and vindicate the blind man now healed and a disciple. Most of the action occurs between Jesus’ two arrivals. It is difficult to believe it is coincidental that the form of the narrative corresponds to the form of the story of the church: Jesus comes with blessing and instruction, Jesus departs, Jesus will return with vindication for his church.”

Just like the blind man who can see we live now in the time between Jesus’ first advent and his next. In our journey of following Jesus in faith and repentance there will be many times where we will hear the voices of skepticism that would put the work of Jesus in our life on trial. Those voices may be the actual voices of friends and family, or, from our cultural worlds. Tragically it is often the case that darkness will creep into us as we doubt and lose heart in the face of our own sins and lack of faith; we will hear a voice - the voice is hissing even if it sounds calm and rational - and these are the sorts of things it will say. “You have confessed this same sin as long as you can remember and you still struggle with it. Just give up. There is no healing work of God going on”, etc. ad nauseam. I suspect that what is going on when we speak to ourselves this way is that are treating ourselves the way we have been treated by others and the way we often treat others, rather than allowing ourselves to be embraced by God and to be energized by his forgiveness.

In our “in between times” the communion table is set for us by God to remind us that confessing our sins always brings us to the light and away from the darkness in spite of what the enemies of the light will screech at us. The sacraments remind us that there is one who has been vindicated already and in his vindication we share.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you have people who are close to you who celebrate the work of God in your life? How can you foster those sorts of relationships - how deliberate do you need to be in doing that?

2. Do you have people in your life who you perceive to be people who are always putting God’s work in your life on trial? Is it possible to help him or her move to a posture of being one who celebrates with you instead of doubting? Is it possible you could be mis-perceiving their attitude (how would you know)? How should you related to such people?

3. In light of Craddock’s suggestion about Jesus’ absence (see above) how important to our spiritual formation is regular involvement in church and regular reception of the sacraments? Why is it so important?

Tired, Frustrated and Thirsty

2011-03-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves
to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and
inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all
adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil
thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

FYI: this is less recap and more like a lightly edited version of the preaching on Sunday.... so, it is bit more wordy and has a little more of the preacher's cadence and voice....

Texts (John 4 and Exodus 17:1-7)

Lead into Communion
In our texts before us this morning we meet people are who are tired, frustrated and thirsty. The Samaritan woman at the well has had a really difficult life; she is tired, frustrated and thirsty. She will guide us in a deeper understanding of grace during the homily. In our text from Exodus we meet a bit of a different sort of fatigue and frustration. God’s people have been freed from oppressive slavery in Egypt; freedom is at hand and more freedom is in front of them. But what about food and what about water? Earlier in this narrative they cried out in hunger and God gave them manna; now they cry out for water to quench their thirst but where is the water? There is no water in sight. There was water in Egypt and for that matter there was food in Egypt. There was plenty of food and plenty of water but at the cost of their freedom; here, in the wilderness, there is freedom, but water and food come only from God’s hand. Can he be trusted to keep providing? Will the one who provided yesterday provide today, or tomorrow? In Egypt there was water stored up in reserve. Make some more bricks; get some more food and water. Pharaoh’s grand empire would apparently never run out of food and water. Stay in your place and you will at least have food and water. Out in the wilderness it is a different story. Commenting on this passage, Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, says this: “Moses obeys; Yahweh delivers. Israel drinks. The crisis is averted. The narrative tells all of this in one brief sentence.... no commentary.... no explanation... no embarrassment.... We are given only a simple bare act for all to see, a lean story for all to hear. It is a situation in which Yahweh sustained life but in lean, precarious, anxiety producing ways that require deep trust.”

Interestingly, this narrative is part of a time of Israel’s life that is cited in the Psalms and the New Testament as a time of unfaithfulness.... a time characterized as grumbling, complaining and doubting God. However, we should note that God’s response is still one of provision. To be sure, the response comes in the form of a “terse command, a lean promise, and life-at-the-last minute (Brueggemann)”, but it is a response none-the-less. “Israel is left to trust in miracles that the empire had deemed impossible” This is the God who is good but not safe. This is God developing faith and trust in us by always binding himself to us in life-giving ways - on his terms to be sure - but binding himself to us none-the-less. One is reminded of the passage from 2 Timothy that some New Testament scholars think might have been part of an early creed or hymn: “When we are faithless he is faithful for he cannot deny himself”. This communion table is for those who are tired, frustrated and thirsty. Like Israel of old we come wanting to trust in freedom but often leaning towards slavery. God though, for his part, is determined to make us free as he builds faith and trust in us. “Life-at-the-last-minute” was not God’s way of being capricious but his way of deepening faith. Bring your worst fears to God this morning; bring your frustration with him and this world; throw it at him and in ways that will almost certainly surprise you, he will meet you with grace.

From the homily:
And now we meet more fatigue, more frustration and more thirst in Jesus’ visit with the Samaritan woman. It is well known that Jesus shatters social, moral and religious categories by talking to this woman. (1. He should not be talking to a woman in this manner according to the conventions and guidelines of Judaism and the culture in general. 2. He should certainly not be talking to a woman who had a bad reputation - the fact that she was at the well at an odd time most likely meant that other women did not want to have anything to do with her. 3. As someone who was a rabbi, he should certainly not be talking to a Samaritan, who were regarded by Jews as half-breeds - they had intermarried during the exile - they were despised by the religious leadership of Israel.

There is an aspect of this story, however, that is often shied away from in the pulpit but I want us to explore it a bit. Jesus puts himself in a situation where anyone looking on would almost certainly make assumptions - assumptions that were not true - but assumptions. The assumptions would have been around what his motives were in talking to a woman and talking to her alone. Since society and religion had left no room for such a conversation to occur for any good reason, the only thing that would have occurred to most onlookers would have been that this conversation was illicit in nature and designed to lead to sex. In the previous chapter of John, we have a religious leader who seeks Jesus under the cover of nightfall, afraid of being openly associated with him. But here Jesus seeks someone who society frowns upon in a setting and interaction that to onlookers would have at first appeared tawdry, in order to make her an example of who God welcomes as worshippers. The thought has crossed most of our minds before whether or not Jesus would be happy to sit down with us wherever he were, no matter how much of a mess we might be in that moment. This passage should give us a great assurance that if Jesus were here in our time in the flesh he would be happy to talk with us anywhere and at any time, even if the whole interaction might look shady to cynical onlookers. You are the ones he welcomes as worshippers.

The Samaritan woman, with her history of pain, brokenness, likely often taken advantage of by men, maybe sometimes a willing adulterer - the text leaves these questions open - she is a lot like us. Like us, her past and present is characterized by a lot of pain and misgivings, and a future full of questions. She is tired, hungry, and thirsty. Her confession: "I have no husband" is met with Jesus' acknowledgment of her brokenness and an invitation to see, in him, a future of worshipping God in spirit and in truth. There is not a hint of moralism or religious elitism in Jesus' words. Instead there is an invitation for her to grow in God’s love and grace. The implication is clear; the way to human flourishing for her, and for us, is found in a deeper relationship with God and his healing love. The goal of God's love is to bring us to see ourselves in light of God's purposes for us in this life. To be sure, love wounds us as it opens us to the future that God wants for us, for it is always hard to come to terms with the truth, at least initially. But it is in the confidence of God's love for us and his desire for us to flourish that we find the courage to face that truth and seek the healing that comes through a deeper experience of that same love, here symbolized as living water.

Questions for Discussion:
Questions 1 and 2 will likely spark the same sort of discussion - you may want to take them together.

1. Can you think of times when you have been like the wilderness generation, grumbling and doubting? Can you think of an aspect of your life where you lean towards slavery but yearn for freedom? How does God’s provision for Israel in the wilderness help you when you think about leaning towards slavery?

2. Obviously, a goal of the Christian is not to be faithless. What are we to think about the passage in 2 Timothy 2:13, “when we are faithless, he is faithful for he cannot deny himself”? What is God wanting us to take away from such promises?

3. Does the gospel give you the courage to face yourself for who you really are? If God does not expect you to see the whole truth about yourself all at once what is your responsibility in seeking to deepen your understanding or yourself in light of the gospel? Do you ever send signals to others that you expect them to see the whole truth about themselves all at once?

4. How have you observed moralism and religious elitism to block people from encountering God? Have you ever been blocked by them?

The Promise To Abraham; The Promise To Us

2011-03-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

Lent, to be sure, is a time of focused and intense reflection and repentance but as we have mentioned before it is not a time to grovel or imagine that the worse we feel about ourselves (maybe even the more we loathe ourselves) the more likely it will be that God will just maybe let us have a second chance. Now, we don’t for a minute want to suggest that we should be complacent about our sin whether it is almost wholly interior or the sins of omission and commission that so profoundly impact others. No. Complacency is not a mark of discipleship; complacency is not a mark of gratitude for God’s love. What we have been emphasizing, though, is that the gospel teaches us that our repentance is in response to the loving God and that our repentance has promise because of God’s promise. After all, God sent the Son not to condemn but to save (John 3).

The text from Romans before us this morning is full of so many theological ideas that it would be impossible to touch on many let alone all of them on one Sunday so I am going to focus on what I take to be the heart of this passage - Paul is concerned to explain to the church at Rome, a church of Gentiles but also of Jews, that the promise of God has always been for the whole world and not just for Jews. He makes this point by going back to God’s original loving initiative with Abraham. The promise is given to him that God will work through his lineage to bring about the salvation of the world, of the nations, and not just the Jews. In Paul’s argument the significance of when God’s promise is made to Abraham is of vital importance. The promise was made before Abraham was circumcised and before the law was given (Romans 4:9.13). This emphasis of Paul’s argument would be unsettling to many of the Jews of Paul’s day who not only took pride in their ethnic heritage but who had also come to rely upon that ethnic privilege as counting for privilege and righteousness before God. Some had even come to the point of despising the thought that God’s salvation would be for gentiles too; recall, it is the expansiveness of God’s love in the ministry of Jesus that always got him trouble with the religious leadership of his day. In telling the story the way Paul does he is not simply confronting a race trumps grace position that poisons the well of God’s love; he is also preaching the gospel, which is what he always does. He is saying: look here is good news. Before Abraham could do anything to move towards God, God moved towards him and claimed him for his redemptive purpose in the world, claimed him for his own; what you take pride in, your circumcision, not only robs you of a full relationship with the Gentiles but also obfuscates the truth about God’s unconditional love of you.

Application:
I don’t know if you have ever noticed this about yourself but I know it to be true of me. I don’t want to love other people when I doubt God’s love for me. One of the most important things you can do for those who love you and indeed for the whole world is to learn to cherish God’s unconditional love for you. The force of Paul’s argument for those who had come to value race over grace was based on a simple yet profound logic about when God’s love found Abraham.... God’s love found him as a sinner ( point that Paul drills home by citing Psalm 31 in Romans 4:7,8, in the midst of his discussion of Abraham: “happy are those whose sins are forgiven”.) A key to our spiritual formation it that we understand well the foundation of our relationship to God. God’s love for us is prior to and without respect to our good deeds, our bad behavior, or our religious life. It is when we are looking at the caller id on a phone call from a friend with whom we are angry and we decide to let it go to voice mail knowing that we will wait a long time before we call them back as a way of showing who has control.... as a way of punishing them..... it is when we are yelling at our spouse or our kids and wondering if life will ever look like we want it to look - these moments reveal us as God always knew us to be when we loved us for the first time!

Questions for discussion:

1. Paul says in Romans 4:16 that God’s great work of salvation got its start by Abraham responding in faith to a promise (though Abraham’s wife was barren he believe God could make him the father of many nations). Paul goes on to say that it must be this way so that God’s promise may rest on grace - not on the works of the law or ethnic privilege. Paul seems to be driven here and elsewhere to lay us bare before God, to take away from us anything that we could take religious or moral pride in. Why does he do this? What is he protecting us from? What is protecting the church from? Do you think that you think about this aspect of your relationship with God as much as you should?

2. When you catch yourself in a moment of sinful behavior or thoughts are you quick enough to think of God’s love for you? What slows you down from seeing God’s love in those moments?

3. From our John 3 text: if you had to put into your own words what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus that he had to be born from above, how would you put it?

the grace of the One abounds for the many

2011-03-15T11:41:00.001-07:00

Our text in Romans this morning invites us to see our life as moving in one of two directions. We are either moving towards fullness and human flourishing with Jesus or death and destruction with Adam. Now before you dismiss this contrast between life and human flourishing with Jesus or death and destruction with Adam as being too extreme, ask yourself questions like these? Have you yet loved others the way God has loved you? Have your actions ever broken the hopes and dreams of those who love you? Do you break promises that leave others picking up the pieces? What Paul is saying is this. With Adam, there was a trajectory away from trusting in God’s provision for humankind; with Jesus, there is a reverse of course and an open doorway to movement back towards trusting God.

According to the Biblical narrative, with Adam, there was a rebellion against God’s gracious provision in what began as a seed of doubt about the goodness and all sufficiency of God’s provision. With Adam, like the adulterer (whether adultery of the heart or adultery acted out in physical reality) there was a nurturing of an illicit lust and a greedy demand for more and more whatever the cost. In the midst of the serpent’s tempting words, the relationship with God appeared not good enough. There was a craving for the forbidden fruit. Adam left us with a separation from God’s love borne out of a misconstrual of and rebellion against God’s goodness. Jesus, in stark contrast, lived in full trust of God’s love and provision, even to the point of his own death on the cross and separation from God’s love. Jesus embraced his own death and the forsaken experience of separation from his Father as an act of obedience and love, trusting in God’s provision. In so doing he brought redemption and the promise of resurrection to the entire world: the grace of the One abounded for the many (Romans 5:19).

I suggest that a good way of reading Paul in this portion of Romans is to see the comparison and contrast between Adam and Jesus as setting up a framework in which we can understand better the dynamic of God’s grace at work in this world. What removes us from the destiny of Adam and unites us with the destiny of Jesus begins with a re-established honesty before God and a re-established trust in his goodness. Honesty and trust is what eroded in the first place with our primordial parents, Adam and Eve. Honesty before God and trust in his goodness is re-established in Jesus. However, on the other side of Eden honesty and trust have a different raw material to work with. The raw material that must be worked on in fallen people living in a fallen world requires us to bring to God the brokenness of our lives, our need for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. What is required of us is a hard-to-come-by honesty about who we are and what our lives are really like. Sadly, however, in little and big ways we signal to each other that we really don’t want honesty. We want happy faces and settled lives. We don’t want to embrace the reality and pain of ongoing struggles. The season of Lent reminds us in a very focused way that it certainly is obedience that God is looking for but that obedience begins with the obedience of honesty about who we really are and the obedience of ongoing repentance with regard to everything that robs us of God’s best for our lives. The list is long for each of us but the grace of God in Christ abounds through the One for the many. May God give us the grace to face ourselves honestly before him and then lead us to newness of life.

1. Before communion we talked about how the author of Hebrews words can be read as a theological and devotional commentary on the meaning of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). (Hebrews 4:14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested* as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.) What do you think it means to approach the throne of grace with boldness? Are you bold when you repent? Are you bold for others when they repent? Do you ever demonize yourself when you are being tempted? How about when you sin? Could the truth of this passage - if it soaked into you more - help you to not demonize yourself and others for struggling with sin?

2. Does it help you to think of the origin of sin (disobedience) as a breakdown in trust in God’s goodness and sufficiency towards his children. If so, why? If not, why not?

3. Do you send little or big signals to others that you don’t really want honesty; but that what you really want is a happy face and a settled life? Can you give an example, even if you fictionalize it a bit?

Bearing Burdens; Not Growing Weary in Doing Good

2011-03-08T09:43:00.000-08:00

Galatians 5:26-6:10
Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

6My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. 2Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. 5For all must carry their own loads. 6Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. 7Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. 10So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

I have included the passage from Galatians above so it can be easily referred to below.

I want to start from the end of the passage before us and work backwards from that. At the end of this passage Paul exhorts the church in Galatia to not grow weary in doing what is right and to work for the good of all, especially the family of faith. I think that this exhortation is a little snapshot of what Paul sees church to be, a place where people who are forgiven learn to forgive one another, to care for one another, to bear one another’s burdens, as he puts it earlier. A church consisting of members who are being made by the spirit of Christ to be able to do just that will also be well equipped to act with a genuine no-strings-attached benevolence towards those outside of the church, thus bearing witness to the goodness of God.

Now let’s go back in this passage where we are exhorted by Paul to bear one another’s burdens. I would suggest that this exhortation is given in order to flesh out what it looks like for one Christian to help another Christian move forward in his repentance and restoration. Whether Paul had in mind “big sins’ or “smaller sins”, a specific instance or a general principle, does not make that much difference. What he wants us to understand is that a spiritually healthy church is one where restoration looks like one person bearing another’s burden. Bearing one aother’s burdens: what a striking image! This way of talking, of course, is Paul’s way of evoking the image of the cross. Luther puts it this way in his commentary on this passage; here is my paraphrase of him: Christians must have strong shoulders and mighty bones so that we might bear flesh, that is the weakness of our brothers and sisters; love therefore is patient and kind, designed to wink at many things and to bear them.

It should not surprise us that Paul marks out cruciform behavior as a sign a healthy community. As John Howard Yoder wrote: “God has the same shape as Jesus and he always has had. The cross is what creation is all about. What Jesus did was local of course, because that is how serious and real our history is to God. But what the cross was locally is universally and always the divine nature.”

Making cruciformity the measure of the sort of interactions Paul has in mind in this passage challenges us to think, perhaps, differently than how we usually do about spiritual maturity.

When it comes to restoring someone who has fallen into sin, church people often think of those who occupy the moral high ground reaching down and helping the weak come along. But this goes against the grain of Paul’s words and imaging in this passage. The one who restores

* should not see spiritual maturity in competitive terms (5:26)

* is a burden bearer (6:2) think of Christ bearing our burdens
* exercises a spirit of gentleness (6:1) there is no whiff of condescending here
* is one who should regard himself as nothing and should not think of himself as something (6:3)

As one person has put it, we heal by solidarity and not condemnation. Another way of saying that would be to put it this way: we don’t help others grow in grace by sharing stories that make us seem like our lives are all-buttoned up. Rather, it is by sharing our stories of God meeting us in our weaknesses that creates the kind of community where we effectively bear each other’s burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.

Questions:

1. Can you think of a friend, associate, or loved one who you regard yourself as better than? Is there something that that person struggles with that makes you think that you are better than him or her before God? If so, do you see that as a problem?

2. Can you make up a hypothetical scenario, even if it is inspired by bits and pieces of real life events in your own history, wherein you can present what it would like to

* heal by solidarity, through demonstrating your weaknesses?
* and, what it would like to attempt to heal by talking down to the person?

3. Do you have enough (or any) relationships that are genuine and robust enough to offer occasions for true mutual burden-carrying? How can these relationships be fostered so as to avoid the sort of hierarchies that invite spiritual competition?

The Nearness of God

2011-03-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

This Sunday we continued to ponder together the amazing truth that God delights in being near us. In deeply spiritual and mysterious language Paul talks about Christ living in us and that his life in us is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:25......)

I have been circling around this great truth the last three Sundays because I am convinced that we simply don’t ponder it enough; we don’t let it soak in. Of course, one of the reasons we are uncomfortable with the notion is because there is still a big part of each us who don’t relish the idea of God’s intimacy with us 24/7. I went so far this week to suggest that we are actually more comfortable with the idea of a God who is primarily motivated by a desire to punish people for wrong-doing than we are with a God who won't leave us alone until he has defeated every enemy of human flourishing that opposes God’s best for us. A God who delights in punishing and is primarily drive by a retributive pathos is a more familiar category for us than the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The former concept is more at home in our world of broken promises, vengeance, and a culture devoid of a passion to forgive and be reconciled. The God of the gospel, however, is in our business, reminding us that we are too good to indulge sin. He calls us to repent so we might have a deeper experience of the joys that he provides instead of settling for the cheap substitutes we often revel in.

Amazingly, a lot of Christians, or many of us at one time or another, have had a sub-Christian view of God. We have imagined God as driven primarily by a desire to punish. On this view, Jesus takes the punishment and we are off the hook.... “Thanks God!!!!! See you in heaven.”. But God is not primarily motivated by a desire to punish but a desire to make people whole. C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia is so very effective in helping us get a glimpse of this aspect of God’s character. I know so many of you know this story well but here are the quotes relevant to the point I want to draw out:
Lucy asks Mr Beaver is "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you."

God is good but he is not safe. It is a risky business to meditate on the nearness, the intimacy, of God’s presence with us. When we do, pretty soon we discover that the parts of our lives we want to hide away from him are bare before him and we feel afraid. How should we respond to his relentless pursuit of us? Dare we ask him to take away our crutches and give us new legs to walk? How would we live with the real thing when we have dulled our senses with the ersatz pleasures of self-indulgence? Is the real thing big enough to satisfy? We all have parts of our lives we try to hide from God. This season of Lent, let’s be bold and ask God to tear us away from the God who leaves us alone and give us the God who won’t rest until we are perfectly human, robustly our true selves in Christ.

Questions for discussion:

1. Sometimes we don’t set something (sinful, self-destructive is what I have in mind) before God for him to work on for us because we can’t imagine living without whatever thought pattern or behavior it is. What can help us have the courage to bring it to God anyway? What are some of the lies we believe that keep us form bringing this sort of thing to God?

2. Are you getting more comfortable with the intimacy of God? Doe it seem too

3. If a friend of yours were to ask you what God wants to do in this world, what would you say? Would you talk about his desire for human flourishing? What examples and experiences could you offer form your life to illustrate your point?

Christ in you, the hope of glory, Part 2

2011-02-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

Recently we have been reflecting on what it means to imitate God in the way that the gospel suggests we should. We talked about imitating his forgiveness, his patience, and his love. I mentioned last week that I felt that we needed to pause in the midst of these reflections in order to consider the dynamics of how God makes us able to imitate his character and we took note of this staggering truth: when we come to follow Jesus, in a deeply mysterious, deeply spiritual way, Jesus himself - through the invisible but powerful work of the Holy Spirit - comes to live his life in and through us. We went on to talk a bit about how that mind-bending truth does not immediately feel like good news to some of us or many of us. At least for some of us at many times in our life we would rather not think of Jesus being so close to us at all times and in all places. However, I insisted that we come to see this truth that Paul summarizes as “Christ in you the hope of Glory” as really very good news, an essential aspect of the gospel.

This is what we said about that last week in summary fashion. From the homily recap from last week:
“Building on these thoughts in the homily I remarked that we need to hear and believe that Jesus’ intimate presence with us at all times is really good news. I simply don’t think many of us think about passages like “Christ in you: the hope of glory” as good news. For many of us the thought of Jesus’ intimate presence with us makes us uncomfortable or ashamed. But we know that Jesus is comfortable in our skin because he is 100% committed to helping us become who we are meant to be by calling us back to ourselves over and over again, tirelessly reminding each of us of his love for us. It is vitally important for us to learn to recognize the truth of Christ’s presence in and among us as good news and cultivating the discipline of speaking and hearing the good news as a spiritual good in and of itself. As Saint Paul says to the Romans, “For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’

Let’s move on in our discussion though and consider together how our response to this good news can help us grow. I suggest that it is our response to this aspect of the gospel (Christ in your the hope of glory) that can help us relate to ourselves, our fellow human beings and the rest of the world more and more in the way Christ has related himself to us. Lets flesh that out some.

In the history of the church’s discussions about spiritual formation there is a great tradition of talking about God’s desire to make us holy - be holy as he is holy. This discussion often has touched on the great thought that God is intimately at work within us to make us holy. However, sometimes when people have talked about this they have emphasized that the main thing on God’s heart when he thinks of us is that he wants us to be sin free like he is. And so the discussion immediately becomes about working in overdrive to get rid of sin, a conversation that quickly turns into moralistic emphases that invite people to run towards perfectionism on the one hand, or denial, on the other. Despair or apathy often accompany a moralistic emphasis. There is also a tradition, though, of talking about being holy as God is holy as being more like Jesus. This approach is a good one I think but the discussion of imitating Christ can often fall into vagueness and platitudes. What I want to suggest to you is that the first step to becoming holy like God is holy is to recognize the way in which God has revealed his holiness to us. When Paul calls the Philippians to a deeper experience of God’s holiness he tells them a story. It is the story of who God is and how God is, what is often referred to as the Christ poem:

Philippians 2:1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was* in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Then, later in the same chapter, Paul gives an example what this self-emptying looks like in a person within their community of brothers and sisters in Christ. The person he offers as that example is Timothy whose life is characterized by not looking to his own interests but to the interests of others.

2:19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. 20I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22But Timothy’s* worth you know.

In Timothy’s life, the mark of God-likeness is that he lived according to the patten of the same self-emptying that characterizes God’s nature as revealed in Christ. This is what, in turn, gives us a clue as to how God makes us holy. For God, the movement of self-emptying reveals his holy character; God is who he is by giving himself away. For us, self-emptying takes the form of receiving this self-giving, self-emptying love - of being inhabited by it. God, from all eternity, has existed in a dance of love given and received perfectly between Father. Son and Holy Spirit, Now, in Christ, God has included us in that dance!!! But for us growth in holiness comes from the dance - a tango of God leading us in self-emptying, self-giving love complemented by our reception of the same. For God, self-giving love is who he is. For us, self-emptying love is who we are becoming as we continue in the dance.

For us to keep our feet and bodies faithfully in the dance - and this is how I hope we will avoid the vagueness and platitudes I warned against earlier - we need the additional movements of confession and supplication. We confess when we resist God’s self-giving love and we beseech God to give us a deeper desire to experience his self-giving love from day to day. However, we must develop the discipline and habit of specific confession and specific petition - generalities are not enough. Here are some examples of specificity. If drinking too much keeps us from being alert and alive to the love and care we want to give and need to give to friends, loved ones, and work, then God's mercy needs to wash over that aspect of us as we confess and petition; if our flashes of anger make people afraid to approach us then we need God's mercy to wash over that aspect of us; if our sexual fantasies are robbing us of our capacity to enjoy genuine love and affection then we need God's mercy to wash over that aspect of who we are. It is the process and the trajectory of repenting of our resistance to God’s self giving love that yields the fruit of holiness. Last week we said that we need to remember that hearing the good news as good news is a vital spiritual discipline in and of itself. This week we added another layer: naming our sin, naming our lack of experience in and participation in God's self-giving love around specific sins of omission and commission will shine light in places that were dark and help hope take root where there was previously apathy or despair. We need to start recognizing our movement towards holiness as God's purifying work in us and not allow our imperfection, incompleteness, and continued sinfulness to tell a story about us that is not true. Our story is Christ in us, the hope of glory!

1. Why does a moralistic approach to holiness lead many to despair or denial?

2. Why does simply saying that we should imitate Christ lead to vagueness and platitudes?

3. Can you think of certain things you should be confessing of in particular that you have left too vague and general in the past?

4. Does the metaphor of the dance help you to think through what growing in holiness might look on a daily basis in our lives?

Jesus is Comfortable in Your Skin

2011-02-15T13:19:00.001-08:00

The other day my wife and I went with a friend to hear a very special concert. This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Bluesman Robert Johnson and the rock band Big Head Todd performed and hosted a tribute show at the CSO. In a sense Todd from BHT was more of a curator that night than a performer, deliberately playing a supporting role, as the legends Hubert Sumlin and David Honeyboy Edwards took the stage to play - Sumlin at 79 and Mr. Honeyboy at 95. When these two artists took up their instruments the first thing that struck me was how at home they were with their instruments; they were so comfortable in their skin. It is a really wonderfully enriching things to see people who are comfortable in their skin. The author, Ernest Hemmingway, in his reflection on his creative process in his book, A Moveable Feast, talked about how he liked to write while he was out and about at cafes and such and around people doing what they did well, whether it was fishmongering or what not - it gave him inspiration to see people comfortable in their skin.

If I were to tell you that Jesus was comfortable in his skin - God in the flesh - at home with human beings, totally undivided in his mission to bring redemption to the human race and this fallen world, you would be with me I think. There is something that sounds right about that thought; I could get an amen on that. But I want to remind you of something even deeper as we come to this table this morning, as we prepare to feed on Christ in our hearts by faith, as the liturgy puts it. I want to remind you that Jesus is at home in your skin too. Our reading from Colossians puts it this way: the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Jesus is at home in your skin because what brings him joy is helping you become more fully human, more of who you long to be, more of who God desires for you to be. As we repent of our sins, as we confess the ways we have run away from Christ’s redeeming love while turning in on ourselves, we must always remember that Christ is right there with us, comfortable in our skin, calling us back to ourselves, our true identity in Christ, the person we long to be. As Saint Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians, “and all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” When God calls us away from sin he is not only calling us to himself but he calling each of us to our true self in Christ.

Building on these thoughts in the homily I remarked that we need to hear and believe that Jesus’ intimate presence with us at all times is really good news. I simply don’t think many of us think about passages like “Christ in you: the hope of glory” as good news. For many of us the thought of Jesus’ intimate presence with us makes us uncomfortable or ashamed. But we know that Jesus is comfortable in our skin because he is 100% committed to helping us become who we are meant to be by calling us back to ourselves over and over again, tirelessly reminding each of us of his love for us. It is vitally important for us to learn to recognize the truth of Christ’s presence in and among us as good news and cultivating the discipline of speaking and hearing the good news as a spiritual good in and of itself. As Saint Paul says to the Romans, “For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’

1. I gave an illustration from the TV show “What Not To Wear” this Sunday when I was trying to help us understand how Jesus feels about. The way in which people encounter grace helps them undergo a transformation in how they see their selves. I suggested that Jesus wants us to grow in holiness because growth in holiness means that we are growing towards being the best of who we are meant to be as unique human beings. If you had to give an illustration of what God’s love looks like towards you when you are a mess what illustration would you offer?

2. I have suggested that growth in the gospel necessitates that we speak and hear the gospel regularly and that we learn to recognize what counts from scripture as good news. Do you feel that there are some parts of scripture that you might ought to hear as good news but can’t. What keeps you from hearing good news as good news?

God's Justice and Ours

2011-02-08T11:56:00.001-08:00

This week we followed up on a remark I had made recently in a homily regarding the justice of God. When we were considering God’s call for us to be imitators of his forgiveness of us I mentioned that one of the things that gets in our way of being able to forgive more like God forgives is that we often imagine that we are called to not only imitate God’s forgiveness but also his justice.... this is what I said about that in the recap of two weeks ago: “Here is the problem though - there is no way that we can imitate God’s feelings of justice towards people and this is why. God cannot think of justice without thinking of love and the cross of Christ, whereas our thoughts about justice are too often bound together with thoughts of retribution and personal offence.” This Sunday I wanted to expand a bit on the theolog of God’s justice by trying to hone in on what motivates God to seek justice. In this context Iurged us to think about God’s justice as defined by his love. Now this is no new topic at Grace and we have cited a great quote by Miroslav Volf several times in the past where he makes just that point. Here it is again:
"Justice demands nothing less than the undoing of the world, past and present, and the creation of a new world.... A world of perfect justice is a world of love. It is a world with no rules in which everyone does what he or she pleases and all are pleased by what everyone else does; a world of no rights because there are no wrongs from which to be protected; a world of no legitimate entitlements because everything is given and nothing withheld... a world with no equality because all differences are loved in their own appropriate way; a world in which desert plays no role because all actions stem from superabundant grace. In short, a world of perfect justice would be a world of transcended justice because it would be a world of perfect freedom and love. The blindfold would be taken from the eyes of Lady Justice and she would delight in whatever she saw; she would lay aside the scales because she would not need to weigh or compare anything; she would drop her sword because there would be nothing to police.... If we see human beings as children of the one God, created by God to belong all together as a community of love, then there will be good reasons to let embrace - love - define what justice is."
As I said, we have cited this great quote before at Grace - so nothing new there; however, what may be new for some of us is to think about the implications of this as we consider what actually motivates God to be just. I suggested that God’s motivation in judgment and in his promising to bring justice to bear on this world comes from a loving desire to see things put right - a desire for shalom. His motivation in all of this is not to satisfy his anger and does not come from a desire to even a score. Retribution is not the motivator with God’s judgment. Here again, Volf is helpful:
“How is God’s love related to God’s judgment? God’s love has different effects on people depending on the basic orientation of their being and the moral character of their deeds. When we do what is right (basically, when we love) we experience God’s love as delight and approval, as God’s face shining on us. When we do what is evil (basically, when we are indifferent or harm others) we experience God’s love as wrath and condemnation - not because God does not love us but so that the loving God can return us to the good from which we have fallen. Whether God’s love is angry with us or delights in us..... God loves us with the same unchanging divine love rooted in, and indeed identical with, the very being of God. That is why those who remain in love, and thereby remain in God, have confidence in the day of judgment and need not fear.”

Finally, I encouraged us to think about how this knowledge of God’s judgment being rooted in his love might enable us to think differently about our desires for others. I suggested that sometimes we have dark fantasies of a God who will satisfy his anger by wiping out his enemies; not surprisingly the enemies are usually our enemies or people we just fear. I suggested that we should pray that God shape the desires of our heart according to his desire to put all things right through a judgment rooted in the love of all peoples.

Questions for discussion:

1. Are you more likely to see God as one who desires to get even to protect his honor or as one who, because of his love, will not allow evil to prevail?

2. If someone were to ask you whether you thought God delights in sending people to hell what would you say?

3. Can you think of a relationship in your life that has been negatively impacted because you imagine that God despises them? This can either be someone you know very well or someone you know hardly at all.

God's Patience and Ours

2011-02-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Last week we could have just as well entitled the homily God’s forgiveness and ours because one of the main things we concentrated on was the relationship between our being forgiven by God and the way in which growing in our experience of God’s forgiveness enlarges our capacity to forgive others and our desire to forgive others. I also invited us to think about the way in which forgiveness is important in a foundational sense to our growth in other spiritual disciplines. This week we looked at God’s patience and ours, noting that as we learn to recognize God’s patience with us we can be more patient with ourselves and with others. I also suggested that learning to be patient with oneself can be one of the most important things one can do for those one loves and cares for because the one who is learning to patient with herself can more easily be patient with others.

Henri Nouwen talks about patience in this way:
“A waiting person is a patient person. The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her womb.”

Part of what I think is suggested or, at least presupposed, in what Nouwen is saying is that the goal, as we walk with God in this world, is to be headed in the right direction. Each moment of our life is open to God’s love, wisdom, and forgiveness; living honestly with the truth of who God is and the truth of who we are in those moments keeps us on the path. We never imagine we have arrived in this life but find God’s presence to be a faithful companion on a long journey. On the journey patience manifests itself as we confess in any given moment that there is something hidden going on, that God’s work will indeed endure in our life and the life of our world. This is what we do each week in the sacrament of communion; in that holy moment we confess the hidden reality of God’s work in our life and we remind each other that the path we are on is the path of life, of human flourishing.

Growing in patience by learning to see each moment of our life in God’s presence helps us over time to be able to sit with the messes in our life instead of fleeing to ephemeral pleasures designed to distract us from the messy reality of what is going on in our lives. Also, growing in patience helps us to remain present and engaged with those around us instead of demanding they be “put together” in the way we imagine, hypocritically, that they ought to be.

Questions for discussion:
1.If you were trying to put the Nouwen quote in your own words and explain it to someone what would you say?
2. What is the difference between being patient with yourself and being too "easy on yourself?"
3. What does it look like to be willing to suffer with the brokenness in yourself and others in a patient way?

Why So Hard To Forgive!?

2011-01-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

"he is kind to the wicked" (Luke 6)

I have been pondering recently why it is important to forgive and why it is so hard for us to do it. I suggest that the gospel portrays forgiveness as important in a different way from other important disciplines of the Christian faith. Growing in our capacity to forgive as God forgives us, imitating God’s forgiveness, cultivating a desire to forgive, learning to forgive, and becoming a better forgiver makes Christ’s love grow within us like nothing else does; and Christ’s love growing within us is the cornerstone that makes possible the overall transformation of our character which God desires for us.

In the homily I suggested that it might be helpful for us to think a bit about why it is hard to forgive. My reasoning is that if we can better understand why we get sidetracked in our imitation of God’s forgiveness that we might just be able to repent of the ways of thinking and feeling that sidetrack us and, in turn, grow in our imitation of God’s love and forgiveness.

OK. so why is it so very hard to forgive. Well, there is the egotism. The me first stuff. As the popular writer Karen Armstrong puts it - “people don’t want to put others before themselves.We are addicted to our egotism, our likes and dislikes and prejudices, and depend upon them for our own sense of identity. When we come out with a clever and unpleasant remark about somebody else, we get a rush of self-satisfaction.......”

I also want to suggest that there is a theological error we fall prey to that stands in the way of our imitation of God’s forgiveness. Here is how it goes for many of us: We rightly understand that God is opposed to unrighteousness, injustice, and every enemy of his peace, his shalom. And we know that we are supposed to think about things the way that God thinks about things - or at least as much as is humanly possible. But then we run into a situation where we encounter someone who has wronged us personally or we observe them doing things that we perceive to be unrighteous or unjust and then we imagine that what we are called to do in that situation is to imitate God’s feelings of justice towards this person. Here is the problem though - there is no way that we can imitate God’s feelings of justice towards people and this is why. God cannot think of justice without thinking of love and the cross of Christ, whereas our thoughts about justice are too often bound together with thoughts of retribution and personal offence. If we fancy ourselves to be in some way the imitators of God’s justice we say this sort of thing to ourselves : “I know that we are called to forgive but I am going to forgive only if they change, repent and ask for forgiveness. Until then I will be ready to forgive but I will feel towards this person as God does - “justly angry”. I will not seek retribution against this person but I will only leave it alone because I know God will seek justice.”

This way of thinking and feeling reveals the ugly truth that it is far too easy for us to think of justice without thinking simultaneously of love and forgiveness. This way of thinking also betrays a misunderstanding with regard to what God was doing with Jesus on the cross. Here Miroslav Volf is helpful:
“ ‘In Christ, wrote the Apostle Paul, ‘God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them (2 Cor 5:19)’. Not: Christ was reconciling an angry God to a sinful world. Not: Christ was reconciling a sinful world to a loving God. Rather: God in Christ was ‘reconciling the world to himself’..... God placed human sin upon God! One God placed human sin upon another God? No, there are not two Gods. The God who is One beyond numbering and yet mysteriously Three reconciled us by shouldering our sin in the person of Christ who is one of the Three. That’s the mystery of human redemption made possible by the mystery of God’s Trinity: The One who was offended bears the burden of the offence.”

I brought this insight of Volf’s regarding the mystery of the atonement into this discussion because I suspect that when we misunderstand what God is doing in the suffering of Christ we are likely to get mixed up when we think about God’s attitude towards sinners. If our view of the atonement is that God took retribution on his Son as a third party so that he could not kill some of us, a view portrayed in many popular and scholarly versions of conservative Christian groups, then I suggest we are crippled from the start when considering the nature of God’s love. In turn this leads us to be confused when we think of how God regards people, even people who hate him and love wickedness. Again, we find Volf helpful: "If God does not find what is pleasing in an object - if human beings have become ungodly - God does not abandon the object in disgust until it changes its character. Instead, God seeks to re-create it to become lovable again... God is not just generous even to the unrighteous; God also forgives their unrighteousness so as to lead them through repentance back to the good they have abandoned."

I encourage us to think of our journey as a church community at Grace Chicago as a journey to imitate God’s love and forgiveness within our communities of living, working and playing in Chicago. May God grant that they we be known for imitating him in this way.

1. We mentioned in the homily that we are called to advocate for God’s justice but that it is a misstep to fancy ourselves as imitators of God’s justice. What is the difference? Can you think of some examples to compare and contrast?

2. What do you do when you find that your anger towards someone’s actions is all consuming foe you, making it impossible to conceive of praying for them much less forgiving them?

3. How would you answer someone who says to you, I don’t want anything to do with a God who kills his Son so that a small percentage of the history of the human race might have eternal life?

Homily Recap (Tim Bowyer preaching)

2011-01-18T09:36:00.000-08:00

If you want to read the text:
II Corinthians 5:14-6:2
Also, you may want to read the Mary and Martha story from Luke 10:38-42

This week, we focused on the reconciliation that God has accomplished in Christ This was Paul's emphasis to the church at Corinth in chapter 5. He proclaims the confidence Christians have in the love of Christ, convinced that Christ has died for all and was raised so that all might live in Him. Paul moves from this conviction to his statement about newness:
"So if anyone is in Christ, there is new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" For Paul the source of greatest hope, what made the gospel good news, was that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…"(v. 19). The grammar of this text is graciously clear. God is the subject, the author and originator of the work of reconciliation. We (in verse 18) and the world (in verse 19) are the direct objects. In this we understand that reconciliation is God's work, not ours. The way God restores right relationship, friendly relations, with us and with the world is through Christ.

We discussed how human beings are drawn to renewal, happy to think about change and newness, but often get lost in despair or in perfectionism. It is sometimes our tendency to think of ourselves as if we are orphans, left alone or abandoned by God. We may think this because we have been hurt in one way or another by others close to us. We may struggle against sin or emptiness, a feeling like God was withdrawn himself from us, that we are alone. We may have seen grievous hurt in the world around us so that it seems God far off. These feelings are legitimate. After all, Christ cried on the cross a cry of forsakenness. It is the human experience to feel alone sometimes, like no one quite understands or like we have no help. The text in Corinthians dispels this sense of abandonment, because we meet a God who has drawn near to us. In v. 21, we are told that for our sake the holy one of God ("he who knew no sin") became sin. Christ fully identified himself with our human condition. He walked in our suffering and faced what would be our forsaken death, so that we may know the nearness of God, that he is abundantly merciful. In this we are adopted into God's family with Christ as elder brother.

We also get stuck in perfectionism, because we have learned somewhere along the way that being good is what matters most and what wins us approval. This comes from our childhood experience in the home, in school, and often at church. It remains in our adult experience at work, in our society, and in our religious life. We learn to ignore or repress the parts of our lives that are morally incorrect, unsuccessful, or incomplete. We think about our relationship to God as a kind of moral formation, a path to newness that is marked by hard work, improvement, and success. We also tend to misunderstand what true gift is. We tend to think about things being given to us because of our merit, because we were nice and not naughty. We consider gifts a burden because they require our responsibility if not our purchase. But kind of morality and this thought about gifts inevitably leads to exhaustion because we know deep down that we cannot rise on our own to morality and we can never earn back the gift of God. The gospel we encounter in II Corinthians frees us from this burden. It is "in Christ" and not in our merit, our working harder, or our striving that we are made new. Instead of busying ourselves with the work of God, we have one thing required of us: We are to rest in the Lord and his work of reconciliation.

This kind of freedom characterizes the new economy that God sets up in giving his son Christ. In the story from Wendell Berry, "It Wasn't Me," Elton Penn had to learn about this new economy:
(My paraphrase):
"He didn't like the thought of being in debt, let alone to a dead man, someone he could never repay! In a conversation with the town lawyer who was settling his case against the old man's children, Elton learned something about the economy of this little town. Wheeler Cattlet had to convince Elton that this is how the community worked. He instructed Elton, “Everyone in the whole community is in debt to someone they'll never pay back. Everyone is in a long line of succession. We've stopped keeping track of who owes who."
In the old economy we must somehow win God's approval, earn back the gift of reconciliation, or prove to Him that we are worthy of it. This misses the point of course and sets us up for exhaustion.
In the new economy, marked by the perfect gift of God, we find relieve and newness when we sit at the Lord's feet and RECEIVE his love. This sets up a whole new way of understanding ourselves and interacting with the world around us. It liberates us from the weight of duty and helps us find our core identity in God's love.

Discussion Questions:

1. Where is God? It is human to wonder this. Where have you sensed God's distance and how have you dealt with that feeling? How do we build the kind of confidence that Paul points to in II Corinthians, confidence that God is near and that we have not been abandoned?

2. Why is it our tendency to think that what we do is what primarily identifies us? Is this true? What does it mean to you to know that your identity as a Christian is (as Colossians 3 says) lost in Christ in God? How do we live and ACT as though we are primarily recipients in the work of reconciliation?

3. How does understanding that God is with us and that he has done the work of reconciliation effect our community and our relationships with others who are our enemies?

Epiphany: Jesus's Story is Our Story

2011-01-11T10:06:00.001-08:00

This morning we meet the mysterious magi - the wise men from the East who help Matthew make a very important point about Jesus: he has come for all people. This wondrous truth, that Jesus had come to form a redeemed humanity, a new human race, was one that the early church came to embrace powerfully by understanding that the gospel of Jesus Christ could reconcile people to each other who would otherwise be enemies. In the same way they understood that the gospel could empower those who were living under the power of others - whether slaves, women or children or simply peasants in the harsh context that was the Roman world in which the gospel took hold - those who previously had no hope, no story that would help them see their lives as hopeful, are brought into the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and are told that their lives are now bound to his. Our destiny is bound up with Jesus’ destiny.

We all know how it is when we come face to face with our fears, our sins, our failures. It can be quite discouraging. We can really start to wonder in the midst of these moments of self-reflection who we really are and what will come of our lives. Sometimes it seems that other people will have more to say about who we are and what is most true of us. Perhaps a mean-spirited boss, parent, or other authority figure has had such a strong effect on us that we feel like we are puny, helpless, and incapable. Maybe some of us have a self-defeating tendency where we engage in actions and thoughts that make us feel paralysed. Or, maybe we have a prideful self-confidence - a swagger that usually makes us feel good about ourselves with little thought of how we are impacting others. For the proud there is always a day that comes when a loved one is so injured by the proud and selfish one that the latter has a moment where he wished he could be different but doesn’t know how. These are so often the stories that we live - stories of paralysis, shame, self-doubt of narcissistic pride. On Epiphany Sunday we remember that God is the one who desires to write the story of our life. His glory has been made manifest to all people in all circumstances! His mercy and forgiveness is always near and the story of Jesus is always the story we are invited to live into. Epiphany Sunday reminds us that we are never at the mercy of a trap or snare, we are never doomed to continue in destructive behavior; as those made in God’s image we are always meant for more! God is the one who is writing the story of your life. The Jesus story is now your story. May God grants us the grace to live into that story.

Questions for discussion:

1. It was suggested in the homily that keeping with the rhythm of the liturgical year can be a helpful way to be reminded that Jesus’ story is bigger than any one of us and that even our failures have a redeemable place within that story. Can you think imaginatively about how the liturgical year can speak to the seasons of your life in hopeful way?

2. What role does Christian community play in increasing our faith that we are living in Jesus’ story, that we have been united to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, that his destiny belongs to us?

3. In the early church it was quite remarkable for a slave or another powerless person to be brought into the power of Jesus’ story. The stories around them told them that they were powerless; the gospel told them the exact opposite. Can you think of examples from your own life when what someone else thought of you really governed your life in a negative way - a way that kept you from God’s love? What helps you get free of those life-killing stories?

Advent 2

2010-12-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

For the recap this week I am posting the following excerpt from an advent meditation fro Miroslav Volf. From this I quoted on Sunday. For discussion I suggest the following questions:

1. How does the Christian vision of hope differ from optimism or wishful thinking?

2. How might the knowledge that Christian hope is fundamentally different from "extrapolitve cause and effect thinking" make you think differently about your daily struggles with various temptations?

3.What sorts of disciplines can help you move the concept of hope from the realm of the abstract to a place deep within your heart - so that our hoped for future begins to impact more and more upon us in the present?

"Optimism is based on "extrapolative cause and effect thinking." We draw conclusions about the future on the basis of the experience with the past and present, guided by the belief that events can be explained as effects of previous causes. Since 'this' has happened, we conclude that 'that' is likely to happen. If an extrapolation is correct, optimism is grounded. Since my son Nathanael could pick up Little Bear and read it when he was in kindergarten, I could legitimately be optimistic that he would do reasonably well in the first grade. If extrapolation is incorrect, optimism is misplaced, illusory. Aaron, my two-year-old, is very good at throwing a ball. But it would be foolish for me to bet that he is likely to land a multimillion-dollar contract with a pro ball team and take care of my retirement. Our positive expectations of the future are based mostly on such extrapolative thinking. We see the orange glow on the horizon, and we expect that morning will be bathed in sunshine. Such informed, grounded optimism is important in our private and professional lives, for the functioning of families, economy and politics. But optimism is not hope. One of Moltmann's lasting contributions was to insist that hope, unlike optimism, is independent of people's circumstances. Hope is not based on the possibilities of the situation and on correct extrapolation about the future. Hope is grounded in the faithfulness of God and therefore on the effectiveness of God's promise. And this brings me to the theme of Advent. Optimism is based on the possibilities of things as they have come to be (the future in this way is dependent on the past); hope is based on the possibilities of God irrespective of how things are. Hope can spring up even in the valley of the shadow of death; indeed, it is there that it becomes truly manifest. The figure of hope in the New Testament is Abraham, who hoped against all hope because he believed in the God "who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Rom. 4:17-18). Hope thrives even in situations which, for extrapolative cause-and-effect thinking, can elicit only utter hopelessness. Why? Because hope is based on God's coming into the darkness to dispel it with divine light.

Every year in the Advent season we read the prophet Isaiah: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shined" (Isa. 9:2). This is what Christmas is all about--something radically new that cannot be generated out of the conditions of this world. It does not emerge. It comes. We do not extrapolate it. God promises it." - Volf - for bib. cit. email me.

Advent 1

2010-11-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

Advent is a time where we practice expectant waiting. In our culture - we try not to wait and that can be a good thing much of the time. We are glad that technology has enabled us to do important things very quickly - and anyone who has been in the emergency room with a sick loved one or a sick oneself is glad if somehow one does not to wait at all and is quick to give thanks if that is the case. However, there is a kind of spiritual discipline that is a certain sort of waiting that helps us see God’s intentions for us and this his world - it is the sort of waiting that is picked up in the Scripture readings during Advent season.

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’

In the words of the prophet there are days to come where God will act powerfully to redeem as only he can and the words of the prophet taught God’s people to shape their lives around this expectant waiting on God.

It is the sort of waiting that recognizes that to name our need for God’s intervention in our world is preliminary to experiencing his saving power and might. Whether you are relatively affluent and powerful, or poor and power-less naming one’s need for God to act in the world in justice, peace, mercy and love is a spiritual discipline that is not recognized enough for its importance. There is a reason why these words of St. Augustine have echoed through time and have spoken so deeply to our human condition: “thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

Recently I had a stomach virus - I was feeling really low and Palmer our three year old daughter brought me her little stuffed Lamb, Lamby, to comfort me and cheer me up. My wife Jill told me that Palmer was really concerned about me - she knew something was not right and that she wanted it to change. Whether you are a three year old daughter who wants her parent to be well, or the prodigal son in a far off country who one day wakes up to the fact that the brokenness in his life needs to be named so he can go back home, advent season reminds each of us to name the darkness and cry out to God for light.

Which is why the liturgy teaches us to pray in this way in advent season:
GOD of all nations: you spoke to Isaiah and you empowered him to speak welcome words of
peace and hope to the people in his time. We need to hear your word anew to us today as the
darkness of despair is still experienced wherever peace and hope is absent. Amen

Let us now come to the table that is God’s living promise that his light is shining and will shine forth until this world has been transformed into the world to come......

In the time that we have left in the homily I want to pick up again on our theme of expectant waiting but I want to think about how it speaks to our life together in the community of the local church - these remarks also serve to round out our homily series we called growing pains where we have been thinking together about what it means to be the church together. But first I want to think with you a little bit more about the grace that comes to us through cultivating the expectant hope of which we have been speaking. As we have mentioned, advent presupposes something about us that we are not anxious to admit. Advent presupposes that we are not what we ought to be. I know you are saying tell me something I don’t already know! Well here is something you may know a bit but need to be reminded of; the confession of waiting and the discipline of hope is part of the means to becoming more of who God intends you to be. It is not true that God expects you to change in an instant to become all of who he wants you to be. It is through naming the darkness where you want him to shine his light - naming it over and over again as often as you recognize it which is the process that God indicates will make a life full of meaning, a life of redemption. There is a stark difference between looking at the darkness in your own life and in the world around you and singing come thou long expected Jesus and/vs. refusing to acknowledge the darkness for what it is. One who claims rather loudly that everything is really OK when it is not is, whether he knows it or not, trying to block God’s light. There is also a world of difference between recognizing the darkness for what it is, calling upon God to shine the light of the gospel into the darkness, and the way we sometimes castigate ourselves for not being as aglow as we feel we ought to be at any given time. I’ll say it again. Waiting and hoping is a means of grace all on its own. Waiting and hoping are necessary on the way to arrival; they are not to be despised but to be cherished as reminders of our identity as the children of God who are to stay alert and wait for the son of man to come in his glory.

Now I want to think about how these themes speak to our life together in the community of Grace Chicago Church. The grace that comes to us from cultivating the discipline of expectant longing reminds us that making our confession that we are not yet who we should be as individuals has a corollary in the life of the church community. Our Grace Chicago Church community has not arrived at a place where we are all of what we should be; and just like there is a means of grace in admitting this as persons there is a means of grace to confessing this as a church. In order to get what God wants us to get from him we need to cultivate the humble posture of expectant longing together as the imperfect yet hopeful people of Christ’s church. However, there is a tendency sometimes to say give me Jesus apart from the church and that is all I need. In a homily Samuel Wells preached at the Duke Divinity School Chapel, he remarked: “We’d all like to have perfect leaders, perfect theologians, perfect disciples alongside us and around us and ahead of us. But in founding his legacy on Peter, Jesus did not give us perfection, he gave us church. And church means facing up every day to the way we’ve failed God, failed one another, and failed ourselves. Church means walking everyday the path of passion, cross, resurrection, and exaltation. Church means getting up everyday and saying Well, you’re not the pastor, the teacher, the friend, the spouse, the home group leaders..... the boss, the daughter, the son I thought I wanted. You’re not perfect but then I suppose neither am I. This is not a perfection that doesn’t need Jesus. This is church, which needs Jesus every way every day. No Jesus without the church - no church without Jesus..... The Jesus we create without the church is a fantasy... the church we create without Jesus is a monster.” (from a sermon at Duke Divinity School Chapel)

The expectant waiting that we are taught to cultivate during advent is more like the kind of waiting that accompanies making a very good roux for gumbo - rush it and your gumbo lacks depth of flavor and proper consistency - can’t relate to making gumbo? Well, it is also like the sort of waiting that goes into waiting for a friendship to develop over time - you may think to yourself I really want to say such and such to someone and then you realize that it would be better to wait for a better time to say it - a time when the relationship can bear the weight of those words whatever they may be. So, as Grace Chicago Church we confess we are not yet who we will be but we will live patiently and expectantly with each other in community along the way, naming our need for God’s grace with each other, holding each other accountable to be
alert at all times because God is at work to bring his light into our darkness.

1. Do you sometimes say to yourself give me Jesus without the church? What is Wells saying about how God works in the world and in our lives in regard to Christian community? Why is it so important to say, "No Jesus Without the Church"? Why is it so important to say, "No Church Without Jesus"?

2. Why is it so important to acknowledge that God does not expect you to be all of who he intends you to be right away? How does this realization fit into your desire to change and grow. Does this realization mean that you can "be lazy"?

Christ The King Sunday

2010-11-23T13:46:00.001-08:00

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all
things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of
lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided
and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together
under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This week we celebrated Christ the King Sunday, focusing on the passage from Colossians 1 where Paul talks about Christ’s reign over the entire universe. In this passage Jesus is portrayed as the firstborn of all creation and the firstborn of the dead. When Paul speaks of Jesus in this way he gives us a clue as to how he thinks about the relationship between creation and new creation. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are for the purpose of a new creation and for the redemption of humankind. This, as much as anything, is what Christ’s kingly rule consists of: the restoration of the world and those in his image to a state of redemption, a state of flourishing. This great theological truth offers a plethora of applications; we chose to focus on how this passage speaks to Christ’s taking our enemies on as his own and soundly defeating them.

When the Heidelberg Catechism takes up the portion of the Apostle’s Creed that pertains to Christ’s kingly rule it asks these questions and offers these answers.

Q. How does Christ's ascension to heaven benefit us?
A. First, he is our advocate in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our flesh as a full guarantee in heaven that Christ our head, will also take us, his members up to himself. Third, he sends us, as a guarantee on earth, his Spirit by whose power we seek what is above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, and not things that are on earth.
Q. Why the next words: "and sits at the right hand of God"?
A. Christ ascended to heaven so that he might show there that he is head of his church, and that the Father rules all things through him.
Q. How does this glory of Christ our head benefit us?
A. First, through his Holy Spirit he pours out his gifts from heaven upon us his members. Second, by his power he defends us and keeps us safe from all enemies.

Christ’s declaration of all of our enemies to be his own leads us to conclude quite preciously that his love burns hottest in and around us when we are at risk. We are at risk whenever we are in the throes of temptation or in the aftermath of our sin. In the instance of temptation, Christ is present and offers himself as our support. Over time we learn to turn to him more and more for his strength as his love and acceptance of us becomes more deeply real to us. And when we sin, Christ is there to forgive us and to reestablish us in our identity as those who belong to him. In both of the above circumstances Christ is standing between us and our enemies. In the instance of temptation he is standing in judgment of the potential sin, offering us help and desiring to separate us from it. In the instance of the aftermath of our sin he separates us from our sin through forgiving us and reminding us that the story of our life is not stitched to the sin we have committed but instead is woven into the story of his life, death and resurrection.

1. In the worship service we talked about God’s affection for us as total human beings. He does not just love us out of obligation but delights in us as his children. Is it hard for you to think of God “liking” you in this way?

2. What sorts of things can you do to help yourself believe more deeply in Christ’s role as your protector?

growing pains part 3 coming to terms with money (2)

2010-11-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

We talked about money again this Sunday. Last week I talked a good bit about why it is hard for ministers to speak about money (see last week’s recap). This week we looked again at the passage from 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul is exhorting the relatively affluent church at Corinth to make a gift to the impoverished church in Jerusalem. In this passage Paul urges the Corinthians to give generously so that there would be a fair balance between their relative wealth and their sister church’s relative poverty. Here is how he makes his case: “I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, ‘The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.’” In my opinion, what is really remarkable about this passage is that Paul cites a passage from Exodus 18 (the one who had much did not have too much, etc), where Moses is describing the collection of Manna, as the example the Corinthians should look to as they consider the needs of the poor in Jerusalem. I suggest that there is more that is going on here than Paul simply looking for an example from the OT that makes for a good quote. I think Paul is pointing to God’s sustenance of his people in the wilderness as a picture of the economy of the world to come. Free from the perils of living in a fallen world the economy of the new heavens and the new earth will also be free of scarce resources; abundance will be for everyone but more importantly no one will be in need. From a progress-of-redemption point of view, Paul is saying to us that the new community that is being formed around the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the church, is to offer foretastes of the economy of the world to come in our response to the profound needs of those who have little or nothing in comparison to us. When the people of the church operate in this way we help bring to pass what Jesus says is to be one of the fruits of his mission - to bring good news to the poor (Luke 4).

Summing things up: it behooves us to take care that we see our relationship to money as an aspect of our progressive sanctification. Just as we continue to struggle with the presence of sin in our experience of ourselves and those around us, we will also continue to struggle with making good decisions about how to deal with money. My wife, Jill, and I are constantly re-evaluating our budget as we sort through the choices we make regarding the needs of the poor, the needs of the church, our daughter’s schooling, where we live, what sort of vacation we take, what our entertainment budget should be - believe me, we know how complicated all of this is. I think the most important thing is that we discipline ourselves to bring this part of our life - just as we find need to regularly bring our pride, lust, etc. - to God on a regular basis and ask him for wisdom to know how to reflect Jesus’ self-giving love in our approach to money.

1. Do you think of your giving as providing for this fallen world a picture of what God promises for the world to come? If not, do you think this perspective could help you think about your relationship to money and time in a refreshing way?

2. Is it helpful for you to think about your relationship to money as but one aspect of your progressive sanctification? Does this give you permission to be at once more honest and more hopeful with yourself about struggles you may have in that arena?

3. It is a commonplace for ministers to suggest that people who do not give enough may be living a compromised life with God and their neighbor. What are some other incredibly important questions we should be asking ourselves about our relationship to money? Can you give some examples?

Growing Pains 2 - coming to terms with money

2010-11-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

This week in our “Growing Pains Series” we took up the issue of money. Preachers by and large (and I include myself in this) almost always feel awkward when talking about money in sermons. I think I know why. It has become part of the culture of Christian churches in the US (and maybe elsewhere) to talk about money once a year when it becomes obvious that more donations are needed to make the budget. Invariably, the preacher looks to texts that have to do with money and giving in the New Testament and then strains to make them work as a motivation for the people of the church to give more to the church. The problem with this is that most of the exhortations around giving money to the church in the New Testament have to do with specific situations of need, often associated with the needs of the poor. For example. the passages so often used in sermons on giving to the church are taken from 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 in which Paul expends and impressive amount of words about the profound needs of the impoverished church in Jerusalem. It is quite likely that the greater portion of the money would be used to help the poor in the church.

Further complicating the matter for preachers in our contemporary setting is the fact that there is no such thing as a church institution in the New Testament that looks like what we have today - with a professional clergy, paid staff, buildings to maintain, space to rent, etc. Moreover there is no specific language in the New Testament that would easily translate into an admonition for people to give 10% of their income to the “budget” of the local church. Having said that it should also be noted that it is not unlikely that many in the New Testament church community gave quite a bit more than 10 percent to help with the needs of the poor and the ongoing support of the apostles and their ministry. The problem is that we don’t know exactly what all of this looked like so it is just hard to make specific applications from that world to ours.

What is clear from the teaching of Jesus and the early church leaders is that the money and material resources of Jesus’ followers were to be available for the work of God’s kingdom and, in particular, the needs of the poor. Part of Jesus’ fulfillment of the words of the prophet - I have come to preach good news to the poor (Luke 4) - would come to fulfillment through God’s spirit creating a new humanity of people who looked not their own interests but the interests of others (Philippians 2). Through the new birth the Christian is awakened to a life of liberation from the being a slave of Mammon and is made free to serve God and meet the needs of their neighbors Mathew 6). The Christian’s relationship to money points to God’s economy in the world to come in that she comes to view her wealth not first by what she craves that she does not have but according to the needs of those around her (consider Barnabas an example of this when he liquidates assets for the good of the community - Acts 4).

Questions for discussion:

1. What sort of thought process do you use to help you think about how much you should give to the needs of others? Do you set a % and let it go at that? If you do, is that a good idea?

2. Giving to the needs of the poor is different in our cultural setting. How do go about giving to the needs of the poor?

3. Is it an imperative for all Christians to live simply and say no to some or all luxuries? How do you decide what a luxury is? What about the person who has a person on staff taking care of her home who hears a sermon on simplifying her life that causes her to dismiss her staff person simply because she feels it is a luxury she should not have but one she can responsibly afford - thereby making her employee unemployed. Was that a wise and loving move?

Growing Pains (Part 1)

2010-10-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Meditation Leading Into Communion:

I was talking recently to three friends on three separate occasions about how difficult and messy it is to navigate complicated family relationships. It got me to thinking about how sometimes situations arise in families where there is hurt and conflict and so many people have contributed to the hurt and conflict that no one can imagine how there can really be a way forward - too many sins of omission, too many sins of commission, too many people involved with culpability, too complicated to unravel. There are no neat and tidy one size fits all pieces of advice to give regarding big messes like these, but what has impressed me over the years is how God can come into situations like these and bring a measure of reconciliation and redemption. It usually begins to happen when at least one person - but often just one person - begins to regard his or her identity in Christ as more important than things like his or her reputation, or claim to be right or to know what’s best for everyone else. What I mean by the person regarding his or her identity in Christ as more important that everything else is not a concept of union with Christ but a dynamic sharing in Christ’s suffering in the family. To embody the sufferings of Christ in and with the family also brings the hope of resurrection and newness of life (we die with Christ and we live with him). Let’s offer an example that I have pieced together which has elements of at least half a dozen situations I have had the privilege of being involved with over the years; the example is historical fiction you might say. Let’s say that Anastasia is one of several siblings and that she has given some great offence to the family and that everyone is mad at her. Dad is as distant as ever, Mom has written her off and has nothing to say to her that is not criticism. Then let’s say that one of her siblings - the one who always seems like she has everything together and is the star of the family - comes to her and shares her own secret weaknesses with Anastasia in a way that makes it clear that she does not see herself on another plane but sees herself as one who struggles deeply with her own brokenness, though privately and and invisibly. Then suppose that same sister makes it clear that she has bound herself to Anastasia in unconditional love while at the same time continuing to love and respect the rest of the family. She makes this obvious by steadily respecting Anastasia in the presence of those who do not and by actively seeking her out to run errands, do projects and the like. Anastasia’s sister has drawn near to Anastasia by sharing in Christ’s suffering with the family. When one embodies Christ’s redemptive suffering in this way the possibility of future redemption and peace is greater than it was before.

Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil* the law of Christ.”

Homily:

We are beginning today a series of homilies that we are calling growing pains. We will be considering together examples of difficult and challenging situations that the early church faced as depicted in the New Testament. As we do this we will see how God’s spirit worked in the midst of the difficult situations to (a) enable the community to acknowledge the difficulty for what it was instead of papering over it, (b) enable the leaders to address the situation in a way that brought the community to a place of greater flourishing and (c) bring about a result that helped the church move forward in growth.

This morning we come to the situation that is recounted in Acts 6. The situation is this: the church at Jerusalem was made up mainly of converts from Judaism. In this early Christian community in Jerusalem the majority ethnic group that was in charge of the church was ethnically Hebrew. They spoke Aramaic. The minority group within the church community was made up of Greek speaking Jews. Here is the growing pain that they experienced. The Greek speaking widows within the community were being excluded from the daily provision of food. The Greek speaking Jews complained to the leadership and the result was that the ethnic majority group acknowledged the problem for what it was and appointed seven Greek speaking Jewish converts to come and share in the leadership in order to ensure that the Greek speaking widows were not overlooked.

The first thing I want to note about this crisis is simply the obvious - that it happened. Church is a place where imperfect people are in leadership and sometimes under their watch they make mistakes. In this instance the leadership did not care properly for a very vulnerable group of people, widows of an ethnic minority in their midst. The solution was to acknowledge the problem for what it was and seek God’s guidance to fix it.

The second thing I want to note about this story is that there were people in the church who were upset with other people in the church and in this case rightly so! However, according to the account that Luke gives us of this situation, we are stunned to see that instead of a schism there is a time of refreshing that is brought by the Holy Spirit. Students of Luke-Acts have noted that the movement of Jesus’ mission forward, the advancement of the kingdom, the growth of the early church is the work of the Holy Spirit. In times of crisis it is the Holy Spirit who intervenes and brings growth. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit’s intervention is that he turns people away from their own interests and turns them towards the needs of others. Previously in Acts this is seen in the dramatic redistribution of wealth within the church; here it is seen in the giving over/sharing of power and leadership to the ethnic minority of Greek-speaking Jews. Those marked by the Spirit are those who are can bring reconciliation between two groups who, because of the brokenness of this fallen world, would have reason to be suspicious and resentful of each other. Again and again the Spirit shows his work in the community by enabling certain people to regard the good of the other as more important than his or her own.

What is there for Grace Chicago in all of this? Well, we don’t know - that I am aware of anyway - of a situation in our church community where there is the sort of grave neglect going that was happening to the widows in Acts 6. But if you think I am wrong about that and you know of something I would like you tell me. What does come to my mind and heart regarding what the Spirit may have for us in this story is something like this: at this stage of the growth of Grace Chicago Church each of us ought to take stock of our relationship to the church community and ask ourselves questions like these:

1. Do we regard the work of Christ in the local church community as important enough to vest ourselves meaningfully in the community? In the story before us in Acts 6 everyone involved was fully vested and the whole community was pleased with how the crisis was addressed. Are we vested like that at Grace?
2. Do we recognize hurtful situations in the church where we perceive ourselves to be wronged by another member as an opportunity for healing and reconciliation, or do we turn back into ourselves and our natural friendships and refuse to let Christ's love work on our wounds? Note that many priests turned to Jesus after this crisis - the very group that had the most to lose by subordinating their ethnic identity to Christ.
3. Do we have a high enough view of what God is doing in the world through the gospel at work in the local church to commit ourselves to the unity and flourishing of Grace Chicago Church and to put ourselves in situations where we can bear each other’s burdens? Do we see the church community as the new humanity that Christ is forming where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male and female but where all are one in Christ Jesus?

rescue us from evil

2010-10-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

In the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he tells us to pray that we will not be brought to the time of trial and that we be rescued from the evil one. With regard to being delivered from trials: it is clear that Jesus regarded his entire mission as full of trials and identifies his followers as those who share in his trials (e.g. Luke 22:24-34), those who stand by him in his trials. Also, Saint Paul pictures the church’s ongoing ministry as sharing in the sufferings of Christ, saying mysteriously that his ministry in the church (a type of all those who co-labor) makes up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions ( Colossians 1). It would be impossible then for Jesus to have in mind that we should pray in such a way that we imagine our life can be free of trials. Indeed, I submit that the case is quite the opposite. To follow Jesus is to be in one trial after another. Most likely what is meant here is that we are to pray about our lives and our sharing in Christ’s mission with the real world full of trials and tribulations in full view - not to shy away from them. For, the one whose life is hidden in God with Christ has the courage and clear vision to see just how bad things really are. In this sense we are in a unique position to give the world a gift that, though it might not want, it needs: a diagnosis of what is wrong in the world. Christians, because of our great confidence in God’s judgment of evil and our sin on the cross, have the courage and vision to name evil for what it is when it is at work in ourselves or in the world. However, because we are Christ’s ambassadors of reconciliation, we must be careful to not only name evil but to simultaneously proclaim the good news of the gospel. Moreover, it is not permitted for the Christian to demonize those who do evil things for we are all in the same boat on that one.

So, I am suggesting that the following exhortation flows from our understanding of what is at the heart of this petition regarding trials and deliverance from evil: we are to ask God to help us remain in the power of his victory over evil in the midst of trials and temptations. This must be some of what Jesus had in his mind and heart when he honored his disciples by naming them as those who have stood with him in the midst of his trials while knowing well that they would also be unfaithful to him in his great trial!! Peter, of course, becomes the example of the one who stands with Jesus and also denies Jesus. In this way he is a type of every Christian person; and when we think of the words of the Lord’s prayer in light of Peter as typical of you and me - one who both shares in Jesus’ mission and his trials and one who fails Jesus - it helps us get the right perspective on what we are to ask in faith and hope when we ask to be delivered from the evil one and from the time of trial. We pray these words on the other side of Christ’s victory over evil on the cross; we pray these words on the other side of Jesus’ praying for Peter to turn back and strengthen his fellow disciples; we live on the other side of Jesus’ being faithful in the midst of his great trial in the garden when he prays that God’s will be done even as he struggles with the trial of the prospect of death on the cross; we live on the other side of the resurrection, the victory of God over evil as shown in Jesus’ human resurrection, the first fruits of the new creation.

In the words of N.T. Wright, “To pray deliver us from the evil one is to inhale the victory of the cross and thereby to hold the line for another moment, another hour, another day, against the forces of destruction within ourselves and the world....”

This thought of praying these words as inhaling the victory of the cross will have as many different sorts of applications as there are people in this room but one way I think of it is a call to turn from despair to hope. Think of Peter again. He renounces and denies Jesus in his greatest trial and yet is personally restored to a hopeful future of sharing in Jesus’ mission. We are reminded in all of this that inhaling the victory of the cross is to deal seriously with our sins and failures but only as we invoke the power of the cross and God’s forgiveness. We get it wrong a great deal and imagine that our failures in and of themselves are what God is looking at and what is defining us. But there is no room in following Jesus in this world to say I am defined by sins and failures; there is only room for the joy of repentance and a confident hope that God’s kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we live this way with one another we keep each other focused on the gospel and continue to bear hopeful witness to a world so broken and fractured that it is often afraid to assess evil for what it is.

1. Do you think of the victory of the cross as always with you, ready to be "inhaled"? What sorts of mundane practices could you deepen or add to your routines that would help you to live closer to the victory of God in the cross of Christ?

2. Do you agree that the message of hope is always on offer in the gospel, even (especially) when we have done our worst? How can you help others who are a part of your life appreciate this more deeply?

3. The evangelical world is fond of point out evil in the culture at large but often in a way that demonizes those outside of its folds. What sorts of things should the church say and do in its prophetic voice but in a way that communicates hope?

The Question Will Be: Have you shown mercy!?

2010-10-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus
Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of
everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the
day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death
of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.

Last week we talked a good bit about forgiveness being God’s work through and through. Additionally, we noted the mysterious way in which Scripture points to God’s passion to redeem and to reconcile - not as an afterthought put into play after creation goes wrong and sin enters in - but as an aspect of God’s love for the world that preceded creation. One of the reasons why I am urging us to get as clear as we can get regarding forgiveness being all God’s work, a matter settled before the foundation of the world, is to safeguard us from running amok in our thinking about what goes on when we repent Our repentance does not put God in a new posture of wanting to forgive us. Moreover, our repentance does not earn us forgiveness. Our faithful repentance brings us into union with Christ’s death and deepens our participation in God’s redemptive work in our lives and in the world. Through repentance we die to our efforts at self-justification and autonomy; we die to our arms crossed posture that separates us from God and his nurturing love; we die to our identities as people who are either too proud of or too disgusted with our selves to accept God’s forgiveness. When we repent we take God’s judgment on our sins as being the true picture of what we have done while simultaneously taking God’s word that Christ has taken that judgment into himself - divine wrath is absorbed by divine mercy It is there, where God’s justice and mercy meet in the passion of Jesus’ sacrificial death that we have the promise of our forgiveness even as our sins come under God’s judgment.

This picture of sharing in Christ’s death is sometimes referred to by theologians as inclusive substitution. Here is a helpful and very brief summary of that doctrine taken from Miroslav Volf’s Free of Charge, Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace: “Writing to the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul made a puzzling statement about Christ’s death: “One has died for all”, he wrote, “therefore all have died” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Since Christ is our substitute, after reading, “one has died for all”, we’d expect him to continue, “therefore none of them needs to die”. Had he written that, he would have expressed the idea that theologians call exclusive substitution. According to this view, Christ’s death makes ours unnecessary. As a third party, he is our substitute, and his death is his alone and no one else’s. But that is not the way the Apostle thought. Christ’s death does not replace our death. It enacts it, he suggested. That’s what theologians call inclusive substitution. Because one has died, all have died. As a substitute he was not a third party. His death is inclusive of all.... what happened to him happened to us. When he was condemned we were condemned. When he died, we died. We were included in his death. John Donne put it this way in his ‘Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness’: “We think that Paradise and Calvary, / Christ’s cross and Adam’s tree stood in one place’. To be in Christ means that the tree from which Adam took forbidden fruit and the cross on which Christ died stood in one place, that the old self - the old Adam - died when Christ died (Volf, Free of Charge, pp. 147-148).”

Finally on Sunday we brought all of this talk of forgiveness around to Jesus’ challenging words in the Lord’s prayer: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” We also had the reading from Matthew 18, a parable that Jesus told about the importance of showing mercy to others as God has shown mercy to us. What Jesus is talking about here, for lack of a better word, is the “social” aspect of God’s redemptive work in the world, and his command that we be involved in this aspect of God’s reconciliation of the world to himself. This “social” aspect of God’s reconciliation of the world to himself is terribly neglected in certain quarters of the Christian world. Here are some remarks by Volf on this aspect of God’s forgiveness:

“We cannot be fully saved unless we are reconciled—not only with God but with each other. From this it follows that the undiluted experience of salvation in the world to come must include social reconciliation. Isn't it enough, though, for God simply to give us eternal life and a completely fresh start after freeing us from the desire to sin?When I was a teenager, a popular preacher used to illustrate what happens at conversion by using the image of a new page. When he was a boy (in a time before delete buttons and ballpoint pens), the preacher said, he could never write out a whole page without making a mistake or spilling ink. He was troubled by the mess he kept making and would always be relieved when he could turn to a new page and start afresh. This is, he said, what Christ offers to us—a fresh start. And this is what heaven will be like—our mistakes will be gone and we will be given a fresh start in such a way that from then on we will always write flawlessly.But that is not quite right. Heaven is more than just a fresh start. It is more than just the creation of a new future. It is also redemption of yesterday, today, and tomorrow—redemption of our whole lived life. Heaven is having had your messy pages made clean and right again. Apply this now to the wrongdoings we commit against each other—a majority of our sins. If the past, which is suffused with enmity, is to be redeemed, it is not enough for us to be given a fresh start. Our relationships will have to be restored. Hence the final social reconciliation of those who died unreconciled must be part of the transition from the present world to the world to come.” Here is the link to the article from which this quote was taken: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/october23/7.94.html

Questions for discussion:

1. Does Volf’s discussion of inclusive substitution stimulate your thinking about your repentance? Do you think of repentance as something you do to earn God’s forgiveness? What other erroneous versions of God’s repentance do you sometimes drift into? Why do you think it is so hard to think clearly about this subject?

2. Are you offended by Jesus’ requirement that you forgive those who sin against you? Can you think of someone you have not forgiven that you need to forgive for something? How should you proceed to address the issue of forgiving those who have sinned against you? Are there ways to proceed that would be dangerous and wrong for you to undertake? If so, how can you address the issue of forgiving the person within boundaries of safety for yourself?

3. How does the notion of redemption being about our entire lived lives strike you? Does that sound good or would you prefer the blank slate that Volf critiques above? What difference could it make in your life if you thought of your redemption as a redemption of your entire life, including relationships with others?

Forgiven Before The Foundation of the World

2010-10-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

We returned this week to our meditation on the Lord’s prayer. We mentioned earlier in this series that this prayer reminds us that we are vulnerable creatures who have all sorts of needs whether we will admit those needs are not. Not admitting that we have certain needs gets us into all sorts of trouble but we stubbornly cling to all kinds of defense strategies in order to make it seem as if we don’t have as many needs as we have. For the sake of discussion, let’s just call this a kind of self-sufficiency. I am fully aware that most of us would proclaim adamantly that we do not try to present ourselves as being self-sufficient but I think we behave that way in spite of ourselves, and proclaim loudly that we are not because we know that it is wrong for Christians to present themselves as self-sufficient. It is one thing to take care of your needs and not be overly burdensome upon others but if we pretend we don’t have needs when we do we end up in a precarious position.

One of the bold assertions of the gospel and it is seen clearly in this prayer is that each of us is a person who has a basic human need to be forgiven. That may sound pretty old fashioned to some of you but I would suggest that if you just look around at the world you will see a pretty dramatic need for forgiveness as people continue to wrong each other, demonize each other, hurt each other and often kill each other. I would say that the human need for forgiveness is just as alive today as ever before. Moreover, the gospel, and this prayer, make it clear that you can’t have talk about forgiveness among human beings on that plane unless you talk about the human need to be forgiven by God (the prayer also makes it clear that you can’t have talk about forgiveness from God without acknowledging that his forgiveness is always intended to bear the fruit of forgiveness in the person who is forgiven - we’ll talk about that next week).

There is a lot of confusion about God’s forgiveness and I am sure I am confused about it too. There is a lot of mystery in the air when anyone starts talking about God’s forgiveness in Christ because relevant questions about, among other things, divine foreknowledge and human responsibility come up quickly. Even though all of our theological reflection is provisional because of our limitations I do think it is helpful to try our best to flesh out some theological thoughts about God’s forgiveness. Among some other questions we asked on Sunday was this one: does God forgive before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). If so, what difference does it make?

Miroslav Volf, along with many other theologians suggests that God does forgive before the foundation of the world. “God decided to redeem the world of sin before the Creator could lay its foundations. Each of us exists because the gift of life rests on the gift of forgiveness (Volf).” Put another way, the same love with which God created the world is the same love that drives him to redeem that which he created. Forgiveness for God is not so much a response once creation has gone wrong as it is an expression of the creator’s love from the beginning, mysteriously woven into the fabric of the universe. Or, to put it another way still, where God’s love is there is always forgiveness.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you know of aspects of your life wherein you give the impression to others and maybe to yourself that you don’t have needs when you do? What drives this in you? Where does it come from? What can you do to change and acknowledge your vulnerability.

2. Do you often think of asking forgiveness as a response to a gracious command? Does thinking of it this way encourage you or not? Explain.

3. When you think about the possibility that God was thinking in a forgiving way before he ever created make you think about God’s character in a way that is different than you, perhaps, have in the past? Put in your own words what you think about the suggestion that God forgives before the foundation of the world.

Seeing the World Through The Eyes Of God

2010-09-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, our Pastoral Intern, Tim Bowyer, urged us to see in the sacrament of communion a startling reality, a face to face encounter with God. Drawing on the important work of theologian, David Ford, Tim helped us to draw on the many rich metaphors from Scripture of salvation in the face of God. Maybe, Tim will post his notes here soon.... I’ll ask him. Tim, are you reading this?

God is always facing us and he is always inviting us, even to the point of wrestling us, to turn our face towards him. This is the way God is. He is always facing every human being made in his image and inviting her or him to be fully alive, to flourish as a human being. In spite of our wrestling to turn our faces away from God, his gaze is always there on us, wishing to impart love and forgiveness to us. We are the bearers of his image and he has attached himself to us in love and hospitality.

This is an important thing for us to keep in mind as we think about the meaning of these words of the Lord’s prayer: your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These words are to meant to be a petition on behalf of all of humanity - an agonizing cry for each human being made in God’s image to be made fully alive to God’s love and forgiveness. And when we remember that this is what we are praying and not just for ourselves or our churches but for all human beings in all circumstances - well, that begins to help us see the world a little bit more as God sees the world and a little less like we would see it if left to our fears, our prejudices, our self-righteousness, and our pure selfishness.

When we think of this petition in this way then we pray for and give thanks for human flourishing in all of its manifestations. We pray for all people to come to know and experience the love that Christ has shown for us and we will also pray for our Muslim neighbors to enjoy the same freedom of worship that we do. We pray for the child soldiers in Sudan - that they come alive to God’s love and grace in Christ and we pray that the efforts to bring psychological healing to their trauma will bear much fruit whether that care comes from a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist. The prayer for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven is a prayer for the coming of shalom on this earth, a state of peace between human beings and each other and human beings and God; in the world to come the peace between people and each other and people and God will be in full fruition because, to quote St Paul, Christ will be all in all. However, in order to represent God as generously as he represents himself in this in-between-time some Christians, most Christians, you and I must repent of reducing our understanding of human flourishing in this fallen world to a matter of already actualized conversion to Christ. We must pray for human flourishing to come in all of its forms and celebrate it wherever it occurs and mourn it whenever it is absent.

In speaking to a group of Bishops of the Anglican church in Africa last month, Rowan Williams , archbishop of Canterbury said this in his homily of the role of a bishop and I think it is in a sense the place where all Christ followers should want to stand: “We have the responsibility brothers and sisters of showing the world how precious a thing is a human being – and a special responsibility to show the world the preciousness of those who are hated or neglected by others or by society at large.”

When we the affections of our heart are shaped by daily praying for others to come to understand how precious they are in God’s sight we are praying in line with the Lord’s prayer: your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Questions for discussion:

1. Respond to the Williams quote above. Can you think of one person you know who you ought to help understand more fully what a “precious thing it is to be a human being”? If not too personal, can you share a bit with the group?

2. During the remarks leading into communion, Tim Bowyer, drawing on David Ford’s work, invoked the story of Jacob and the angel. Do you ever sense that you are wrestling with God? Do you think that wrestling with God is a normal part of a healthy relationship with God?

3. "Salvation in the face of God": what a wonderful metaphor. Why and how is it helpful to think of our relationship with God in metaphors?

God in whose image?

2010-09-14T11:49:00.001-07:00

What is below is really only a partial recap of the homily. I have intentionally left for next week the discussion of God’s power with regard to the phrase in the Lord’s prayer, “your kingdom come”. Stay tuned.....!

This past week, NY Times columnist David Brooks wrote an essay entitled, The Gospel of Wealth. In typical Brooks style he employs his sarcastic wit to critique what he thinks is a malaise of our day: the lack of ability to restrain ourselves from being addicted to the more and the bigger - a refusal to never be content (my words not his). But here are his: “Maybe the first decade of the 21st century will come to be known as the great age of headroom. During those years, new houses had great rooms with 20-foot ceilings and entire new art forms had to be invented to fill the acres of empty overhead wall space. People bought bulbous vehicles like Hummers and Suburbans. The rule was, The Smaller the Woman, the Bigger the Car — so you would see a 90-pound lady in tennis whites driving a 4-ton truck with enough headroom to allow her to drive with her doubles partner perched atop her shoulders. When future archaeologists dig up the remains of that epoch, they will likely conclude that sometime around 1996, the U.S. was afflicted by a plague of claustrophobia and drove itself bankrupt in search of relief.”

Interestingly, Brooks’ jumping off point for this particular column is his acquaintance with the writing of a young Southern Baptism Minister from Alabama, called David Platt. In his book, “Radical: Taking Back your Faith From the American Dream”, Brooks notes that Platt critiques certain quarters of the Christian church in America for their complicity in idolatrous materialism.... and the first target is the megachurch itself. “Americans have built themselves multimillion-dollar worship palaces, he argues. These have become like corporations, competing for market share by offering social centers, child-care programs, first-class entertainment and comfortable, consumer Christianity. Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his followers. He created a minichurch, not a mega one. Today, however, building budgets dwarf charitable budgets, and Jesus is portrayed as a genial suburban dude. “When we gather in our church building to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may be worshipping ourselves.”

I am grateful for Brooks’ calling attention to the issue and doing so within an essay where Jesus is referred to as one who can give wisdom to those who are guided by the idolatry of materialism. Critiques of excesses within any culture, though, can come easy. Offering a way forward is the tricky part. Brooks calls for a recalibration toward moderation, and identifies prophetic voices such as Platt’s as a constructive influence. Brooks finishes: “The United States once had a Gospel of Wealth: a code of restraint shaped by everybody from Jonathan Edwards to Benjamin Franklin to Andrew Carnegie. The code was designed to help the nation cope with its own affluence. It eroded, and over the next few years, it will be redefined.”

I thought about Brooks’ essay on and off all week as I thought about the gospel in preparation for this Sunday’s homily. It occurred to me that the question that is looming behind sweeping cultural critiques such as Brooks’, regardless of how spot-on the critique, is what constitutes a life well lived? A life well lived, according to the gospel, is a life of human flourishing, or to use the words of a leader within the early church, Iranaeus, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”. What does human flourishing look like with regard to the concerns that Brooks has raised? Well, human flourishing is not guaranteed by Hummers and MacMansions (and is made arguably harder when cluttered with such “things”), but human flourishing is neither defined by an ascetic lifestyle on the one hand, or unintentional poverty on the other. Nor am I persuaded that human flourishing is fostered as deeply as God intends by adhering to any “code of restraint” that is inherently dependant on rationalistic assertions about the good of society, etc.

I suggest that we become more fully alive when we learn to imitate God’s generosity in ways that reflect thoughtful and intentional sacrifice on our part. Our capacity for imitation of God, however, is complicated by our love of making God in our own image. One of John Calvin’s great insights was that knowledge of self could only grow truthfully when one had a proper knowledge of God. The greater the knowledge of God, the greater one can know oneself with reference to who one is and who one wishes to become. So far so good but Calvin pointed out that the grim problem in all of this is that we don’t have a proper knowledge of God on our own; on our own our hearts are idol factories, bent on making God in our own image. Princeton theologian, Daniel Migliore, puts it this way: Calvin’s insight.... “exposes a secret we would rather keep hidden. All knowledge of God, like other kinds of knowledge, is colored by our personal interests or those of the group to which we belong. We usually have no difficulty seeing this process at work in other people..... More difficult to detect, however, are the ways in which our own thinking and acting, in matters of religion or otherwise, are influenced by our own economic and social interests or those of our own community. If we are beneficiaries of the present social order, we are likely to uphold it and resist any significant changes (from the Power of God and the gods of Power)”.

So, to imitate God’s generosity requires a refreshing of our imaginations and a turning of our hearts - a conversion of our imaginations fueled from the regular and disciplined worship of the God who reveals his power and wealth in giving himself away (Philippians 2:1-11). What is needed in our lives and in our culture is not merely a code of restraint but a repentant response to the generosity of God in Christ, coupled by a life-style of sacrificial generosity, especially to those who have less than we do. The gospel cure for materialism is not a formula but a disciplined moment-by-moment, spirit empowered response to God’s generosity. In this vein of thinking, there is a striking parallel between the cure for promiscuity and the cure for materialism, two of the worst enemies of human flourishing in our time. The cure for promiscuity comes when a person’s moral imagination is captured by God’s love at work in human relationships in attractive, healthy ways; the cure does not come from simply denouncing promiscuity. Similarly, the code of restraint that Brooks seems to want will not come from a call to ascetism; it will come from a daily breaking of our stony hearts before the generosity of God and a reminder that we are called to share our wealth with others as a mark of our discipleship.

1. If Migliore is correct when he says that we will tend not to critique our idolatrous images of God on our own, what sort of things can we do in order to help us see our idolatries?
2. What sorts of decisions can you make about how you live and what you do which will make it more likely for you to have a truer image of God?
3. Do you think that the gospel calls you to make tangible sacrifices in your life-style in order to flourish as a human being? If so, what sorts of habits or conversations can you cultivate in order to gain more wisdom about how this ought to look for you?

"Hospital for Sinners"

2010-08-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

As you may know, if you have been attending Grace lately, we have been moving through 1 Peter during our homilies, reflecting on the text together and asking God’s spirit to enable us to apply the teaching of the gospel for this 1st century church to our situation. As we have lingered in this epistle, it has occurred to me in a fresh way that the questions we bring to the biblical text, and/or the assumptions we make about why Peter says what he does are extremely important. The questions and assumptions that we bring with us to a text shapes profoundly what we are able to hear in a given text.

Here is one example of what I mean. We read in 1 Peter 5 that leaders in the church are to be examples to the flock. But if we imagine that being an example to the flock is primarily about displaying one’s strength and goodness - and inviting others to imitate these - then we have not let the overall meaning of the gospel guide us in our assumptions we bring to the words, “be an example”. Dr. J. Warren Smith, of Duke Divinity School, has a helpful explanation of what leading by example should like in a gospel saturated community. The following is excerpted from a sermon transcript entitled, “The Weakness in Virtue, the Virtue in Weakness”:

“Yes, your virtue matters, and it will make a difference in your ministry. Without such virtues, how can anyone hope to lead God’s people and build up Christ’s body? ..... whatever you contribute in your ministry.... its source is not your strength or your virtue or your excellence, but its source is your weakness. For as Paul tells the Corinthians, “When I am weak, then I am strong..... For what work is the apostle sent into the world but to bear witness to the power of God, who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. The apostle does this by being the earthen vessel in whom God manifests his resurrecting power. The same is true for us who walk in the footsteps of the apostles. Our ministry is not about displaying our wisdom or eloquence or compassion or righteousness. Were that the case, people would see nothing greater than cultivated natural talents. The aim of our ministry is always to point beyond ourselves to God, who is at work in us. One of Karl Barth’s mantras was John the Baptist’s declaration, “I must decrease that he may increase.” Jesus commanded us, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Yet when we read Jesus’ words alongside Paul’s, we realize that the light of God’s power is revealed in the weakness that always accompanies even our best good works, and God is glorified through us . (J. Warren Smith)” (here is the link to the sermon transcript for those interested: http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/the-weakness-virtue-the-virtue-weakness)

In a similar vein, our expectations of what a church community should be for its people will either make it more likely or less likely that its members will grow in their confidence in the gospel. If our expectation of church is that it is a place where we put on a front, wear a mask over our pain and problems, and display only our good behavior then we will be stymied in our growth in the grace of the gospel; moreover, we will make it hard for others in the community to grow in grace as well. The talented writer, Heather Moffitt reflects on her experience of learning what a church should be for its people through the humbling experience of parenting a son with special needs in the context of her church community: “We do not attend a church where ushers ask noisy children to leave the sanctuary. We were never shunned because of our challenging child. Instead, people prayed over him with love. Our pastor would get down on his knees to meet him at eye level every week and talk to him. One lovely couple even offered to keep our son some Sunday afternoons so we could have a break. I slowly realized that this church was a manifestation of God’s grace to us, for it is not a church where everyone arrives with a Sunday-morning mask of perfection over the heartbreaks of life. And I realized that, as much as I wanted my son’s spiritual formation to happen in the church, I had wanted even more to be acknowledged as a good mother based on his model behavior. A challenging child in church forces everyone -- parents and other parishioners -- to confront whether we value compliance over compassion.... Even though I’ve long known how to behave in church, I’ve had to accept how to be broken in church. I wanted to be praised for my parenting instead of healed from my hurt. I thought I was seeking spiritual formation for my son, and discovered I needed it for my own soul.” Here is a link to this essay in its entirety http://www.faithandleadership.com/content/broken-behavior-going-church-challenging-child

Finally, we came back to the passage we have been looking at for a few Sundays now: 1 Peter 5:1-5. In keeping with our theme for the day, our observation that the questions, concerns, and assumptions we bring to a text can either help us get to the heart of the passage or detour us from the heart of the passage, we noted this: many Christians come to the portion of this passage that speaks of submission to elders and become immediately preoccupied with the rationale and mechanics of why and how human beings submit those human beings who have authority over within the context of the local church. I suggest that this line of questioning will take us away from the heart of this passage. It is kind of like meeting someone for the first time and thinking about her primarily with regard to how much money she makes. How much money she makes is part of her story but if it is the first thing you think of it makes you lose sight of what is most important about them as a person. Similarly, if you look at 1 Peter 1:1-5, especially v.5, and think first and foremost about vertical relationships, hierarchy, and the importance of being submissive to those who have authority, you will miss the description of how the gospel is at work within that church community. Why do I say this? Because the whole of this passage is a movement away from the extremely vertical expression of human authority, a product of the culture of the day, and a movement towards mutual submission. In the new community being formed in Christ, everyone is to be desirous of submitting to one another because everyone wears the same garment, humility..

To offer an example of what this might look like in a gospel saturated community I raised one of the harder issues that a church community can face, the tragedy of adultery, an issue which always makes thoughtful Christians concerned about the need for admonition and exhortation to be expressed and hopefully received in the spirit of Christian love. When a member of the community sins deeply against another member - and this could be any sin for the sake of conversation - what norms how the community deals with situations like this (and specifically how leadership acts on behalf of the community) is the desire to love one another deeply from the heart (1 Peter 1:22). In other words, the required admonition and exhortation should not grow out of a commitment to throw down human authority along a vertical axis. It is rather the case that each person is on the same plane, called to love one another deeply from the heart. So, the exhortation, admonition, and mercy required are born from a desire to love deeply the offending party and protect fiercely the injured one. In situations like this sometimes reconciliation is not possible and most of the energy expended will be in support of the injured. But to reiterate - what norms how the community deals with all of this is not a macho demonstration of muscle flexing against the sinner - as if those doing the muscle flexing are without sin and 100 percent pure - but a steadfast commitment to loving deeply from the heart coupled with a steadfast commitment to calling the person, if he is unrepentant, away from sin and back to fullness of life in Christ.

In summary of this Sunday let me offer this: it matters what assumptions, concerns, and questions you bring to a text or to church. If church is primarily a place where human power or virtuous achievement is on display the power of the gospel is harder to see; if church is primarily a place of intellectual challenge and stimulation then..... well one thinks of St. Paul’s remarks about knowledge puffing up. But if the church, to borrow a metaphor from St Augustine, is primarily understood as a hospital for sinners, a place, to use Peter’s language, where people are learning to love one another deeply from the heart..... well that is a place where the gospel can get to work in us in a deep way.... and may our church be this sort of community.... AMEN.

Don't be a Hero

2010-08-03T09:10:00.001-07:00

The past two Sundays we have been taking a look at 1 Peter 5:1-5. In this passage Peter encourages the leaders in the church to “not lord it over” the flock but rather to lead in humility and by example.

Peter’s admonition to not lead by “lording it over” is almost certainly a deliberate allusion to Jesus’ own words from Matthew 20. When the mother of James and John asks him the favor of choosing her two sons to rule as his vice-regents in his kingdom Jesus takes the opportunity to contrast sharply the way authority is to work in the kingdom he is inaugurating with the way in which power and authority were wielded in the culture of the day. His followers are not to use power over people, as was common in their culture vis a vis the patron client relationship; instead they are to serve others even as they have been served by Jesus: “But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

So far so good. Leaders within the Christian community are to serve as Jesus has served them. But what are we to make of the encouragement to lead by example? “Leading by example!” We have said and heard that phrase so many times that we may run the risk of thinking we know what it means in general, and within the context of this passage. Usually, however, when we think of someone leading by example we think of someone who is more or less heroic. “I want to be just like John”, we say, and then set out to take stabs at being just like them. Or, we may say, “if I could be more like Cathy my life would be so much better!”, and then bemoan our perceived failure of a life in contrast. Sometimes, we throw the phrase, “lead by example”, like a dagger - usually at someone who has disappointed us profoundly. The problem with trying to be just like John, however, is that whatever is good in John was produced through a unique journey of faith and repentance. John may have had to go to jail for DUI in order to deal with the pain he was trying to drown in alcohol abuse - pain that came from a loveless marriage. His marriage now, which you admire, was restored through his meeting Christ in repentance through suffering. The problem with imagining that your life would be so much better if you could be more like Cathy ignores Cathy’s unique journey too, but further complicates things by introducing an element of fantasy to the picture, encouraging you to ignore your own journey by escaping into a fantasy about one day being more like Cathy. Finally, the problem with throwing the phrase, “lead by example!” as a dagger at someone who has let you down does nothing to move towards forgiveness and reconciliation and keeps things at the superficial level of behavior modification.

What we need is a pattern of what it looks like to lead by example for people following Jesus in faith and repentance. The New Testament offers just that. The Christ poem in Philippians 2 points the way: “Let the same mind be in you that was* in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” The pattern that each Christian is to follow is the pattern of Jesus’ humility and self-giving love. Jesus, in his unique vocation as the new Adam, in all that he does, points away from himself by living his life completely in the service of others and the saving purposes of the triune God. The question for us: what does imitating this pattern look like for each of us?

We are at our human best when we are pointing away from ourselves, our accomplishments, and our perceived strengths and pointing towards God and his grace towards us. For Jesus this took the form of doing for us and all of humanity what we could not do for ourselves. For us, this imitation of Jesus’ self-emptying entails finding our strength and our hope through dependence upon God’s power at work in our weakness. The patterns to imitate for one another are patterns of perpetual repentance and ongoing faithful petition for God to enable us to live in a way where we love others as we have been loved by him.

Lets come back now to our discussion of John, Cathy, and throwing daggers. So often we think of being a good example in terms of being as close to perfect as we can possibly be. I have suggested that this focus on perceived accomplishment and achievements is unhelpful. I have suggested that we ought to desire to cultivate and copy the pattern of Christ’s humility in each other instead. When we think of imitating the “self-emptying pattern” in each other in the way we have just suggested, the focus is where it belongs, on the means of grace that makes John and Cathy more fully human - not the perceived accomplishments of unique persons. And when we desire for our lives to be shaped in the imitation of Jesus’ self-emptying love, we become more and more cruciform, finding ourselves less likely to throw the dagger of accusation - “you are not a good example!” - and more likely to initiate reconciliation.

Addendum:

During the meditation before communion on Sunday we talked about the passage in Ephesians where Paul calls us to imitate God in our desire to forgive one another. Not surprisingly we meet in this call to imitate the same kind of humility and powerlessness that we have discussed above. Here is the quote I read from as an illustration of this concept:

“It is a gross distortion of forgiveness that sees it as a sort of claim to power over the other – being a patron or a benefactor towards someone less secure. We should rather think of those extraordinary words in the prophecy of Hosea (11.8-90) about the mercy of God: 'How can I give you up, O Ephraim? For I am God and not a mortal'. To forgive is to share in the helplessness of God, who cannot turn from God's own nature: not to forgive would be for God a wound in the divine life itself. Not power but the powerlessness of the God whose nature is love is what is shown in the act of forgiving. The believer rooted in Christ shares that powerlessness, and the deeper the roots go the less possible it is not to forgive. And to be forgiven is another kind of powerlessness – recognising that I cannot live without the word of mercy, that I cannot complete the task of being myself without the healing of what I have wounded. Neither the forgiver nor the forgiven acquires the power that simply cuts off the past and leaves us alone to face the future: both have discovered that their past, with all its shadows and injuries, is now what makes it imperative to be reconciled so that they may live more fully from and with each other (Rowan Williams, from his keynote address at the Lutheran World Federation Assembly, Jully 22, 2010).”

Questions for Discussion:

1. Do you think of yourself as having power over other people because you may or may not want to forgive them? If so, where do you think you learned to think and feel that way? What will help you move away from that attitude?

2. When someone disappoints you what is something you might likely say that would be damaging and point away from reconciliation? What might you say instead that would be at once honest and humble, pointing towards reconciliation?

3. Why is it so tempting to long to be just like John or fantasize about what your life would be like if you were more like Cathy? What process in our own lives is short-circuited when we operate in that mode? What sorts of things do we need to repent of to keep us from operating in the mode of imagining we can or should imitate the perceived grand successes of other people?

Sharing in the Sufferings Of Christ

2010-07-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Broadly speaking, there are three categories of suffering addressed in Scripture: the suffering that is common to the human condition and a result of living in a fallen world; the suffering that we bring upon ourselves when we make bad choices; and the suffering that is unique to God’s people when they suffer for his righteousness. To this last category of suffering belongs the suffering of Christians when we share in the sufferings of Christ.

All three of these categories have in common something that is sometimes overlooked. God makes his home in the midst of human suffering - no matter the cause of it - and desires to help those who suffer. In the cross of Christ, God makes it clear that the chaos that accompanies suffering is not an alien place for him; rather, he declares that arena of turmoil, doubt, and confusion to be a place where he is not ashamed to abide, even while he works patiently to bring those who suffer into a deeper experience of his grace and love. We, however, often run away from suffering. Running away from suffering is usually unhelpful.

As we approached the communion table on Sunday I shared a portion of what one person wrote about her efforts to turn away from and/or deny the suffering that was a part of her life:
“I would find myself feeling sad and I would not know why. I would get a little inkling that maybe it had something to do with the abuse I suffered as a child but what happened to me really wasn’t that bad - not like what you hear about some people. But it all hurt too much to think about anyway and so I would run away from that sadness pretty much all of the time. Then one day I just got tired of running away from the sadness and decided to sit there and let myself feel the weight of it all. As tears flowed I began to make sense of some of those mysterious verses in the New Testament like these:
Romans 8: 22, We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in* hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes* for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes* with sighs too deep for words. 27And God,* who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit* intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.*

“When I used to run away from suffering I did not realize that I was running away from God and running away from this love where and when I needed to be loved by him the most. When I used to run away from suffering I would always run into the arms of some sort of trouble, some sort of self-destructive behavior, but now I am starting to run into God’s arms and the oddest feeling of all is that when I do that, I feel a little more like myself..... “.

Sometimes, the most important step we can take with regard to our spiritual formation is to acknowledge at once the weight of our suffering and God’s presence with us in it.

The passage in 1 Peter from Sunday talks about the third category of suffering we mentioned above. It is the suffering that we enter into through sharing in the sufferings of Christ. As we share in the mission of Christ to bring his love to those who do not know his love - or perhaps hate what they imagine his love to mean for them and this world - we will share in the sufferings of Christ. In Peter’s setting this suffering jumped right into the face of the believers to whom he was writing. At this time in the Roman world, to follow Jesus set one apart immediately and invited severe social scorn or more severe forms of abuse. For the Christians to whom Peter wrote, sharing in Jesus’ mission meant to bear witness in words and good works to the love of God for all of humankind, especially those who hated them. They were to live in this way while not returning evil for evil but good for evil, while loving and praying for their enemies.

For Peter’s audience sharing in Christ’s suffering came into sharp focus for these young converts because of pressure from outside of the community. It is not so much the case for us in our place and our time. We should, of course, pray that we will recognize persecution, should it come, as our sharing in Christ’s suffering. However, most of us probably do not have our identity with Christ and his mission wrapped up in an experience of being persecuted. Rather, we have a greater need to ask God to bind us to Christ’s mission in the world so that we will share in his suffering.

As we pray about God binding us to Christ’s suffering in the world it may good for us to remember a few truths that are forever easy for us to forget.

1. Our calling in the world is not to be popular but to be representatives of Jesus. This is tricky to talk about because in our darker moments we may want to hurt others in the name of Christ and call the unpopularity reaped by such mean-spirited behavior a sharing in Christ’s sufferings. However, it would be impossible to justify this mode in the name of the one who said love your enemies and pray for them. To make the right decision for the right reasons with regard to bringing the gospel to bear in certain difficult situations will require a lot of God-given discernment. One thing I find helpful to remember is that Jesus’ own suffering came as a result of his self-giving love. Those who opposed him and made him suffer were those who sought to control God’s grace and favor - ultimately those who opposed Jesus opposed the idea that God would reveal himself as self-giving love (those addicted to their own power do not like the implications of a God who makes himself known to the world by suffering for his enemies).

2. So much of our confusion around and bland thinking about our calling to suffer with Christ in this world is due to our unwillingness to be pulled into the messiness of other lives, and a refusal to see responsibility for each other simply because of our shared humanity. But sharing in Christ’s suffering means taking responsibility for the suffering of our fellow human beings. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable that is often referred to as the parable of the sheep and the goats. In this story Jesus says that his followers will be those who served him while they were serving the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the strangers, and the outcasts. Among other things, this surely means that Jesus is present with those who suffer and beckoning us to come and serve them, hence sharing in his sufferings.

So, our goal in this life is not to be persecuted but to faithfully bring the presence of Christ and the message of the gospel into dangerous and critical situations. Will we be the people in our families and circles of friends who refuse to demonize other family members and friends but instead be voices for reconciliation and love? Will we be people who invite our coworkers to sacrifice their free time and resources in order to serve with us at the homeless shelter? Will we hold the hand of someone in the hospital when being there is a painful reminder of our own pain?

Questions for discussion:

1. Are there things you need to put into play in your life in order to share more deeply in the sufferings of Christ? Can you offer some examples of actions you might need to take or prayers you may need to pray?

2. We said above that we are to share the words of the gospel with those who do not believe in a manner that is in step with Christ’s self-giving love. Can you think of what this might mean for you with regard to a particular relationship you have?

3. Are you transparent to your own suffering or are you a master at running away from suffering? What has helped you to have the courage to face pain in your life honestly? What circumstance and attitudes have enabled you to live in denial? What role does community play in this for the better or for the worse?

Grace Saturated Community 2

2010-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

"No one who has read church history can conclude the truth of Christian belief from the moral superiority of Christian practice."
This quote is from an essay entitled "Attending the Gaps Between Beliefs and Practices", by Amy Plantinga Pauw. Whether the reference point is 2000 years of church history or the empirical evidence of our own personal lives each of us, in our more honest moments, knows about this gap. The question is: how do we react to the gaps? Do we acknowledge the gaps humbly and seek to live moment by moment in the knowledge that we are at our human best when we are admitting our brokenness, beseeching God to act in us and through us, and repenting of our sins? Or, do we engage in the charade of pretending we are better than we are, expending a great deal of energy in a massive cover-up of our weaknesses, doubts, failures and sins? When we resemble the latter approach, we point away from the gospel and to ourselves, away from God's rich grace and tireless love, and towards human arrogance.

The point of Pauw's essay is to encourage Christians to "relax their hearts" and be honest about these gaps that each of us have between beliefs and practices because God likes to work with the materials of our honesty and vulnerabilities; they are the putty in his hands with which he shapes us into the image of Christ. Pauw reminds us that many times the most holy thing we can do is to pray the classic prayer of the Christian mystic: O my God I do not love thee. O my God I do not want to love thee. But Oh my God I do want to want to love thee. Better to pray that prayer than to pretend we are better than we are. And this brings us to our text from 1 Peter again. Each of us are to live as good stewards of the manifold grace of God that has been given to us. Among other things this passage points us towards just the sort of community of relaxed hearts that Pauw has in mind. We are stewards only of what God is doing in each of us, for, as Saint Paul puts it elsewhere: what do you have that you did not receive? So, each of us is to do our part to shape our community into a place where people feel that they can be safe while they attend to the gaps. As Pauw puts it: "when belief shapes practice in an excellent way, we celebrate God's grace not human effort. For us as people of faith who want to want to love God, the communal settings of proclamation, sacraments and confession frame our hopes for closing the gap between beliefs and practices. In those settings we can reaffirm the truth of our dependence on the riches of God's grace.... freed by God's assurance of forgiveness we can dare to probe the corruptions in our beliefs and practices (Pauw)."

Questions for discussion:

1. Reverend Craig Barnes has said, “the way of the Cross never takes us away from the limitations and hunger that are characteristic of all humanity. It simply leads us back to the world with the strange message that our limited humanity is the mark of our need for God. It is enough. It is a great reason for hope.” What setting or conditions make it more likely for you to acknowledge your limits so that you can communicate hope to those close to you? What setting or conditions make it less likely that you will operate in this humble manner?

2. One of the points of Pauw's essay is that beliefs and practices must be joined by the affections of our heart in order for the gap to be closed and for us to move in the right direction. One can't make oneself love rightly though, right? So, what is our responsibility in tending to the affections of our hearts?

3. Do you feel or sense God's pleasure when you confess your sins to him? If not, what might you do about that?

Grace Saturated Community

2010-06-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday we came again to the passage in 1 Peter which we continue to ponder together as a community in Christ:
"The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."

Obviously, in this passage, Peter desire for his Christian family to think and pray carefully about who to relate to each other within the Christian community. They are to see themselves as those who have been given God's grace (stewards of the manifold grace of God) for a purpose - to serve one another. I fear that too often we read a passage like this and take for granted what it means. We may even imagine that if we are regularly involved in a church that we will automatically live in the way Peter is commending without too much need on our part to be prayerful or imaginative in how we live as stewards of the manifold grace of God. That is why I chose the passages from Philippians 2 as the Call to Worship and Lesson One. I suggest that in these passages we find an outline of what it looks like to serve one another.

In Philippians 2: 19-21 Paul encourages the flock with this news: "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ." In this passage Paul echos his exhortation from earlier in the chapter where he introduces the poem of Jesus' self-giving love (2:6-11) with these words: "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." The negative, let each of you look not to your own interests, is joined by a positive exhortation about what sort of life we have been called to, a life of turning away from one's own interests for the purpose of living a cruciform life. Jesus did not pursue his own interests, for he did not regard equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage; instead, he lived as a slave for the benefit of others. And so we meet Timothy as one who is not like those who seek their interests. Timothy is one who lives the cruciform life outlines in vs. 6-11. Therefore, Timothy will be genuinely concerned for the welfare of the flock in Philippi.

To serve one another in Christ's body we must first be as certain as possible that we are genuinely concerned for the welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ. For an example of what this looks like we considered what it means to speak the very words of God to each other. It is unlikely that Peter means by this exhortation that we may only quote Scripture to each other. More likely what he has in mind is that our words to each other must be chosen for their benefit to the other person. I gave a sad example of what this does not look like when I recounted an interaction I had been privy to over two decades ago between a father and his teenage son. The son had been arrested on drug charges. The father offered no love to his son but instead told his son that he reminded him of his cousin, a black sheep in the family. "You remind me of my cousin, (insert fictitious name). His mama always said he would never amount to anything and she was write. I'm beginning to think you won't amount to nothing either". That was about all the father had to offer the son: aconfirmation of how he already felt about himself. To be sure, a father who loves his son will have to work through feelings of anger, hurt, shame, and frustration when his son ends up in jail. But as Christians we must work through all of that with the Lord so that we may have words of grace and hope, words of gospel to speak to those who have failed and hurt themselves and us. In the case I mention, the son knew he had brought shame on the family and the family name. What he needed to hear was the gospel from a father who had learned to look not to his own interests but to the interests of Christ Jesus so that he might be genuinely concerned for the welfare of his son. I suggest that this is a bit of what Peter has in mind when he says we ought to speak with each other the very words of God. Looking not to our own interests but to the welfare of others we ought always be careful to ask God to give us words for others that open their future to them in hope, instead of confirming their deepest fears that their lives will be defined by their history of past mistakes. Think about Jesus' interactions with the three women we have been considering in our recent readings at Grace: the woman at the well; the woman caught in adultery; and the woman who washes Jesus' feet with tears. In each of these interactions Jesus speaks to them and treats them in ways that open their lives to a future of grace and hope. May our words with each other be the same.

Questions for discussion:

1. Can you think of a time when someone spoke to you in such a way so that your future was opened up to God's grace in a fresh way? Can you think of an occasion when someone spoke to you in a way that was quite opposite of that? In the case of the positive words, do you keep in touch with that person and find ways to tell them how meaningful their words were to you? In the case of the negative words, do you find yourself held hostage by them still to this day or has God enabled you to move past their hold on you?

2. Do you think prayerfully about how you may serve others so as to seek their welfare? What would help you be more disciplined in so doing?

3. Can you think of occasions when you have been stymied in being concerned for the welfare of another because of attitudes, thoughts or feelings that you have been unwilling to set aside (in other words, are their attitudes, thoughts and feelings that are "your own interests" which keep you from serving others as a steward of God's grace)?

Are we Hospitable enough?

2010-06-22T09:47:00.001-07:00

"If there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality." Henri Nouwen
"We will never believe that we have anything to share unless there is someone to receive. Indeed, we will discover our gifts in the eyes of the receiver." Henri Nouwen

If I were to suggest to you that you will never grow as deep in your knowledge and experience of God's love and grace unless you grow in giving and receiving hospitality you might very well respond in puzzlement or in disagreement. I submit, though, that our inability to grasp the importance of hospitality as a spiritual discipline shows us how we often reduce our faith-life to concepts (an affair of the mind) and behavior modification (the strenuous effort to do the right thing on our own strength), while ignoring the patterns and disciplines of living which place us in a posture where God's love is more likely to empower and guide us. Hospitality is one such pattern and discipline, and Peter reminds us of its importance as a formative discipline when he instructs his readers to be hospitable un-begrudgingly. In order to apply Peter's exhortation in our circumstances we need to work towards restoring its original depth and evocative potential, as Nouwen urged.

Hospitality in our experience today has become a kind of weak word. We often think of hospitality in terms of entertaining our friends or being entertained by our friends. The gospel saturated meaning of hospitality as used in the NT does not mean less than this but it does mean a great deal more. Hospitality was a vitally important practice in the ancient world; without hospitality given and received by strangers, travelers were at risk of grave danger. The early church practiced hospitality as they cared for traveling missionaries and sheltered those escaping persecution. Moreover, the discipline of extending hospitality to strangers, including those outside of the Christian faith, reflected Jesus' own practice of extending and receiving hospitality and table fellowship from all sorts of people. In fact the early church became so famous for practicing hospitality for all people that the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) rightly noted that it was one of the reasons for the growth of the Christian church. An enemy of Christianity, he commented in frustration that "it is disgraceful that when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well all men see that our people lack aid from us." He went on to instruct his officials to imitate Christian hospitality for utilitarian reasons, as he was attempting to "re-paganize" the post-Constantine empire he inherited.

So, what ought hospitality look like for us? Well, we should be known for entertaining our friends thoughtfully and well but we should also be known for opening our selves, our tables, and our homes to those with whom we would not ordinarily be friends. For those of us following Jesus, we will often find opportunities to open our selves and our resources to others simply because we wish to share the same love and mercy with them which we have received from the Lord; and, as Jesus taught in the parable of the good Samaritan, that person could be anyone and anywhere. If we can point to none or few occasions when we practice hospitality in this way then we are swimming in the shallow end of the pool of God's grace and love - we need to go deeper.

I have suggested that hospitality is a vital discipline; let me now try to flesh out why it is so vital. In Luke, 7 we meet Jesus as the guest in the home of Simon, a Pharisee. In this home Jesus is not given any hospitality. Instead, a woman of ill repute barges in to a place and setting where she should not have been and lavishes on Jesus a luxurious version of the hospitality he should have received from Simon, the supposed host. I have read, studied and preached this passage many times but I had never seen this passage in light of Nouwen's words: "We will never believe that we have anything to share unless there is someone to receive. Indeed, we will discover our gifts in the eyes of the receiver." What a gift this woman gave and received on this occasion! The exchange not only revealed her gifts to her in the eyes of her receiver but also revealed her self to her in a way that opened her her to her true vocation. As an object of God's love, she is to be an emissary of God's love. What we often miss when we read this story is that hospitality given and received creates a wonderful setting in which God's redeeming love grasps hold of us more firmly. Conversely, the absence of hospitality creates a place that is starved of God's redeeming love. God's love is not grasped as fully as it needs to be in the abstract world of theological contemplation or among friends who always agree with each other. God's love is always on the move to bring people into unlikely relationships together for the sake of re-presenting the hospitality of God which is the occasion of their relationship.

1. Can you think of some examples that illustrate why giving and receiving hospitality from "the stranger" can help you grow in your capacity to be more sympathetic with those with whom you are in closer friendship or family relationships? I am thinking that it chisels away at our self-absorption for one thing.....

2. Can you offer an example of an irresponsible way to offer the hospitality of your home (for example, in ways that trample other responsibilities either to your family or perhaps your responsibility to be a good steward of your home)? What does it look like to be generous and take risks in giving and receiving hospitality - what does this look like within wise and godly boundaries?

3. What are two or three reasons why you don't give or receive hospitality as much as you probably ought to? What can you do to address this problem - are sacrifices in order?

The Urgency of Love

2010-06-15T20:14:00.001-07:00

Love covers a multitude of sins. We met this grace saturated phrase this week in the portion from 1 Peter that we took up in our liturgy. Love is often given a place of priority in the lists of virtues that appear in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians, love is personified as the virtue without which nothing else is meaningful; in Colossians 3, Paul instructs the Christians to "above all, clothe yourselves with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony". It is difficult to know exactly what Peter means when he says that above all maintain constant love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins but I think we can get a picture of it when we consider that love defines uniquely God's motivation in relationships. In order to get at least a little bit of what Peter has in mind when he says that love covers a multitude of sins we need to move past two common misunderstandings related to how we view God's love at work in the world through the gospel.

Misunderstanding One: God's love is defined by his justice. Not so. The gospel arises out of God's love - not because of the logic of a schema devised to satisfy his justice but because of a heart set upon reconciling women and men to himself (Romans 5:8). God's goal for new creation is not a world where the scales are balanced but a world where justice is transcended. Miroslav Volf's quote is helpful here: "Justice demands nothing less than the undoing of the world, past and present, and the creation of a new world.... A world of perfect justice is a world of love. It is a world with no rules in which everyone does what he or she pleases and all are pleased by what everyone else does; a world of no rights because there are no wrongs from which to be protected; a world of no legitimate entitlements because everything is given and nothing withheld... a world with no equality because all differences are loved in their own appropriate way; a world in which desert plays no role because all actions stem from superabundant grace. In short, a world of perfect justice would be a world of transcended justice because it would be a world of perfect freedom and love. The blindfold would be taken from the eyes of Lady Justice and she would delight in whatever she saw; she would lay aside the scales because she would not need to weigh or compare anything; she would drop her sword because there would be nothing to police.... If we see human beings as children of the one God, created by God to belong all together as a community of love, then there will be good reasons to let embrace - love - define what justice is."

Misunderstanding Two: Rules make-up the basis of our relationship with God. The story of the prodigal son corrects this understanding by showing us, quite dramatically, that love - not rules - forms the basis of our relationship with God (his tireless love for us). The father in this story never lets go of his relationship with the son who leaves and brings shame upon himself and his family. The son broke the rules and imagined that the relationship was lost as he indicated by devising a way to come back to his father's homes as a hired hand. But the father's "eyes that searched for and finally caught sight of the son in the 'distance' tell of a heart that was with the son in the 'distant country'... the father kept the son in his heart as an absence shaped by the memory of the former presence (Volf)".

We are left, however, with the question of what it looks like for love to cover a multitude of sins. Jesus gives us quite a few portraits of what this looks like. Let's take one, for example - one that we looked at recently in a slightly different context (see homily recap entitled, Good News for a Sex Saturated Culture). In John 4, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. It is clear from his interaction with her that he is driven by self-giving love and a desire to be in a life-giving relationship with her. Her life had been messy for sure. Like most of us, it is not unreasonable to imagine that her life was in the condition it was in because of her sins and the sins of others. Her confession: "I have no husband" is met with Jesus' acknowledgment of her brokenness and an invitation to see, in him, a future of worshipping God in spirit and in truth. There is not a hint of moralism in Jesus' words. Instead there an inviation for her to grow in the gospel. The implication is clear; the way to human flourishing for her, and for us, is found in a deeper relationship with God and his healing love. The goal of God's love is to bring us to see ourselves in light of God's purposes for us in this life. To be sure, love wounds us as it opens us to the future that God wants for us - it is always hard to come to terms with the truth, at least initially. But it is in the confidence of God's love for us and his desire for us to flourish that we find the courage to face that truth and seek the healing that comes through a deeper experience of that same love.

1. When you are angry or cross with someone over something they have done or left undone that has hurt you - how do you set out to let them know about it? In your confrontation do you make it clear that you love them and care for them, or do you set them up for failure by escalating the tension with words that are not grounded in love?

2. Can you think of an occasion where someone has loved you in a way that has covered a multitude of your sins? What does this look like?

3. We all know that trying harder to love isn't really helpful. What does it look like, though, to put oneself in the path of God's love more deliberately, to be more open to God's love, to clothe oneself with God's love? Can you put into your own words what this sort of active passivity looks like on a daily basis? Does this baptism imagery help? => In Colossians 3, Paul instructs us to clothe ourselves with love. This is baptism imagery. When adults were baptized in the early church they would take off there old clothes and put on a new garment after baptism. The imagery was clear,. The old garment represented a life before God's love. The new garment represented a new life open to God's love and direction. What does is look like to be open to God's love?

Mystery is your Friend

2010-06-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

This past week we came to a very difficult passage in 1 Peter (3:17-4:6). In this passage, Peter is talking about Christ's victory over the evil powers that are at work in the world - the powers that take perverse pleasure in the ruination of God's good creation. He talks about Christ's victory in terms of putting things back into their right order (all angels, powers and authorities have been made subject to the risen Christ (3:22); he also characterized Christ's victory as proclamation to those in prison and to the dead (3:19, 4:6). Rather than shying away from the passage and deferring it to a lecture format as we sometimes do with difficult passages, we preached on it during worship and we said what we thought was the main idea of the passage (see previous homily recap). I have been thinking about this passage a lot since preaching on it and it has occurred to me that one of the most important things to be learned from the passage is that a mysterious text that has never enjoyed a "consensus" interpretation from the church through the ages can teach us a lot about the limits of our understanding and, in turn, the role that mystery and a lack of perfect knowledge plays in bringing us into a deeper relationship with Jesus and the gospel.

This week in the devotional time leading up to the sacrament of communion we chose this passage from the gospel of Luke 24:13-27. In this passage two of Jesus' disciples are walking along the road with the risen Jesus. They do not recognize him and begin talking to them about the sadness they shared around his death and the confusing accounts of his resurrection. Jesus takes this as an opportunity to teach them how to read the Bible from a post-resurrection perspective. He taught them that the meaning of the entire OT, the Jewish scriptures, should be found in the meaning of his life, death and resurrection. "Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah* should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures." In this walking lecture Jesus taught these two disciples not how to study the Bible harder so that they and we might understand every jot and tittle comprehensively. Rather, he is saying at least two things:

1. The meaning of the Bible cannot be known apart from Jesus' life, death and resurrection
2. Much data and many teachings in the Bible are not as important as the overall knowledge of God's intentions to love and redeem as revealed in Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

After Jesus' teaching time with these two disciples came to a close, he broke bread and drank wine with them. Upon the sharing of the communion meal, they saw him for who he was: mystery revealed in sacramental relationship! Then we find the disciples saying this to each other: "They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us* while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’

And so, as I have been meditating on the difficult passage from 1 Peter that we took up last week I have been reminded that to encounter a mysterious passage from scripture is always an invitation to encounter Jesus himself, allowing mystery and human limits to draw me deeper into a worshipful encounter with him. In turn, I have been reminded that that it is in the gospel where we find the mysteries of God revealed to us, for our salvation.

Questions for discussion:

1. Are you comfortable with mystery and/or things in the Bible that you don't understand? If so, have you always been? If not, do you think you should get more comfortable with mystery?

2. If someone were to say to you, what is the meaning of the Bible, how would you sum it up in your own words?

When a Rainbow Pointed to Baptism in Christ

2010-06-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

This week we came to a passage in 1 Peter (3:17-4:6) that is one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament to interpret. With regard to the passage, the only thing more difficult than understanding Peter's original meaning is working out the application for us, in our setting. In this passage we find Peter citing the flood in the days of Noah as an ante-type of Christian baptism; teaching that Jesus announced his victory to the spirits in prison, who were associated with the evildoing which brought on the flood; proclaiming that Jesus' victory has put in their proper place all angels, authorities, and powers; and noting that the gospel has now been preached to the dead, so that they might be made alive in the spirit.

One of the reasons this passage seems so strange to us is that we are not familiar with certain Jewish writings of the period with which Peter seems to be interacting. In the book of 1 Enoch, for instance, the sons of God (angels) who intermingled sinfully with human beings in Genesis 6:1-6, are "imprisoned" in hell as their judgment for the debauchery which brought upon the world the flood. Why this reading was important to Peter, and how his Gentile readers in Western Asia Minor would have heard these words are questions for which we have no ultimately satisfying answers; moreover, what Peter meant by referring to this we do not know either.

Rather than spend a lot of time talking about different interpretations of this passage in minute detail, what I want to focus on in this passage is what I will put forth for your consideration as the big idea of this passage. I submit that the big idea of this section of 1 Peter is that Jesus' life, death and resurrection has gained him a victory on behalf of humankind that has defeated the work of the evil one. Though this victory has yet to come to full fruition in this fallen world, (we are mindful that we live in between Jesus' resurrection and the consummation of all things where Christ will be all and in all), all rebel forces which are at enmity with God and human flourishing have been made subordinate to King Jesus. God is at work to bring salvation to this world, in spite of the fact that evil still taints his creation. And, though the Christians to whom he is writing are few in number, like Noah and his few, God will work through them to bring salvation to many. The flood waters of Noah's day made vast destruction but at the end of that story we are told that after the flood God left us a sign of his promise to never move against creation again. We call that sign a rainbow but the author of Genesis simply used the word for a warrior's bow, which points away from the world. And now, in Christ, we have a sign: baptism. The waters of baptism mark the outpouring of God's grace and love, powerful enough to save all of humankind and defeat every enemy of human flourishing.

Peter's portrayal of Christ's cosmic victory over evil also instructs us regarding how we ought to think about God's love for us, all people, and our world. Though we are complicit through our sin in the breaking of God's shalom, God is positively inclined towards human beings and desires us to escape the evil that is at play in the world. God is itching to give each of us our share in the victory of Jesus over evil. The knowledge that this is God's disposition towards us is itself a stimulant to receive him more fully. But what about those who do not know of this victory? How are we to think of those who are captured by evil? Well, we are all too familiar with the tendency for Christians to demonize those outside of the church but the gospel leaves no place for this with its emphasis on enemy-love, an emphasis prevalent in 1 Peter. "1 Peter does not warn in totalizing discourse against an evil world, but calls his community to resist the devil that prowls around, looking for someone to devour (5:8). The image of a prowling devil suggests that evil is not some impenetrable darkness outside the walls of the church, equally thick in all places; rather, evil is a mobile force, something one always has to deal with but is never quite sure where and how one will encounter it. The statements that celebrate Christian calling “out of darkness into his marvelous light” notwithstanding (2:9), 1 Peter does not operate with the stark black-and-white opposition between “divine community” and “satanic world.” Correspondingly, the author seems less interested in hurling threats against
the unbelieving and aggressive non-Christian neighbors, [23] than in celebrating Christians’ special status before God (see 2:9f.). Christian hope, not the damnation of non-Christians, figures centrally in the letter (see 1:3; 3:15). [24] - Volf from his essay, Soft Difference."

Questions for discussion:

1. How do the interpretive difficulties that swirl around this passage of 1 Peter make you feel about the Bible? Does it shake your faith or make you roll your eyes a little when you realize that for some reason Peter finds it important to interact with 1 Enoch in order to discuss Jesus' victory on our behalf? (1 Enoch is not regarded as canonical by orthodox Christians or Jews.) Do you have to believe that the flood in Noah's day actually happened according to the biblical record in order to follow Jesus in faith and repentance?

2. Do you think of God as itching to give you a share in Jesus' victory and his love? Do you tend to see God more as an extravagant lover or as a miserly lover? Do you see him more in one of those two metaphors with regard to certain struggles you have? If so, why do you think that is?

3. Do you sometimes find yourself engaged in a "totalizing discourse against an evil world"? Is it harmful to our spiritual formation to view life framed as a "stark black-and-white opposition between 'divine community' and 'satanic world'? Why or why not?

Good News for Our Sex Saturated Culture

2010-05-24T11:15:00.001-07:00

This week we celebrated Pentecost Sunday. We did not linger over the traditional passages that are often read and reflected upon on Pentecost Sunday. Instead we talked about the importance of acknowledging our need for the Holy Spirit to open every part of us to God's redeeming work, and to give us the discernment to know how to sort through just how God means for us to live in this world. We returned to 1 Peter 3:13-22 and noted that Peter takes it for granted that Christians will be harmed for doing what is right and good. So certain is he of this that he appropriates the theme of the suffering righteous from Psalm 34 in order to frame his exhortations and encouragements. In the Old Testament, vindication was promised for the suffering righteous - Messiah would come and make things right. For those of us living on the other side of Jesus' life, death and resurrection we are experiencing that vindication but in a surprising way. The sign of our vindication is not the absence of suffering or the temporal defeat of our enemies - the sign of our vindication is simply this: our identification with the crucified Messiah who God has vindicated by raising him from the dead. To see vindication in this way requires a conversion of the imagination - here I think it is good to remember afresh the quotes from Joel Green from last week:

"The issue is this: life-events do not come with self-contained and immediately obvious interpretations; rather we conceptualize them in terms of imaginative structures that we take to be true, normal, and good. As a rule the world at large casts a thick dark cloud of despair over experiences of suffering, distress, trials and alien status. Peter insists that such experiences on the part of his audience must be read according to a radically different pattern of thought - one that grows out of new birth. (Green)"

Specifically, with regard to this portion of 1 Peter, we understand Peter to be teaching us to read the proverbial language of the OT with a conversion of the imagination, through the lens of suffering with Jesus as we live out his mission in a world that still opposes his righteousness. God does vindicate the righteous and his eyes are on them but, as we mentioned before, suffering for one's association with Christ becomes the sign of vindication; the proverbial language of God's protection of the good is given a gospel saturated meaning, "because the axioms articulated here find their center in a recalibration of the universe - a recalibration for which there is evidence in the OT of the long tradition of the suffering of the righteous, and which has now received the divine imprimatur in the life. death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Green)."

Last week we talked about what kind of take-away we are to get from this passage in our particular place and times. I have suggested that for us it is less about figuring out how we suffer and more about being sure that we are united to Christ in the kind of deep discipleship which will sometimes mean that we will suffer for our life-choices. To put it another way, our brothers and sisters to whom Peter is talking knew pretty quickly what it meant to swim against the currents within their culture which opposed God's righteousness in Christ. Conversion to Jesus as savior and lord was rejection of Caesar as savior and Lord, and rejection of the way Roman society and religion worked. This ensured the Christan would experience scornful rejection and sometimes worse. For us, given our unique experience of being Christians in a pluralistic world that once saw itself as Christendom, we have to be prayerful and seek God's discernment in order to ascertain what parts of our culture we must be careful to swim against. And then we must ask for more discernment in order to figure out how to do it in a cruciform pattern.

When I think about a need for discernment with regard to ascertaining what parts of our culture we must be careful to swim against I think immediately about our sex saturated culture and how it invites us to think of ourselves first and foremost in terms of our sexuality, sexual desires, sexual orientations, etc. To deny the beauty of sex or pretend that it is not an important part of being human is not good and sometimes Christians talk in prudish ways that make it seem that sex is somehow inherently dirty. However, in our socio-cultural world, sex is often the de facto religious experience most prominently on offer, or as the late Walker Percy is credited as saying: .... in our days, sexual intimacy is seen as the last hiding-place of real transcendence.

The question for us: Is the gospel good news for people with regard to the sexual parts of their selves? Well, Christians say yes but then we kind of trail off into a bunch of rules about sex. Of course, rules with regard to sex are helpful. The picture of marital fidelity God has given us in the Scriptures offers us boundaries that are meant to protect us from what Rowan Williams calls the shadow side of sex. There is however, in my estimation, a different place to start the conversation with our culture though - not with rules but by asking the question: where does my self draw its core identity from? The Christian answer to this question is that our identity is bound up with the identity of Jesus so that we are meant to see the whole of our lives as opportunities for Christ's life to be formed in us. This means that for each of us, regardless of our sexual history, our orientation to sex, whether we see our selves as heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise - each of us who are following Jesus in faith and repentance are called to see our identity not in terms of our sexuality but in terms of our life in Christ and our call to represent him to each other and the world. My hunch is that each of us falls short of doing this; and, as part of our formation, we need to return over and over again to this foundational plank of what it means to follow Jesus as his disciple - and often in repentance.

But how is this good news, or gospel? In the big picture of things the gospel is good news because when the message of the gospel is believed the believer is emancipated from the chains that bind us in the parts of our lives where we have chosen behavior patterns that, though offering passing pleasures, in the end close us to God's desire for us to flourish. So, for each of us, we are to ask God's spirit to open up every part of us - including our sexual thoughts, desires and actions - to open us to his forgiveness, restoration, discernment and guidance. There is also good news in coming to understand that our struggles with regard to sex and sexuality reflect the brokenness of this world just as every other thing we struggle with does. But we are to be diligent disciples, even as God is a patient parent and Jesus a sympathetic high priest, who was tempted in every way we were. And diligence means that we are not to shut this side of ourselves off from our active petition for God's work in us and for us. Diligence also means that we are to reject the idolatry on offer in our culture which would have us believe that virtually ever sexual desire is either morally neutral or good.

Finally, how is this aspect of the Christian invitation - to find one's life and identity in Christ and not in sex - good news for those outside of the church, especially those who are not yet disciples of Jesus? Well, it is usually not good news and we must be honest with that. We give the impression, at least lot of times we do, that the price of admission to the church is a sexual pure life, which has shades of gray in the way pure is defined; but often the impression given is that you need to have it all figured out sexually before you can come inside. Mistakes are allowed but we pretend that they are easily avoided and quickly overcome. (Oddly, we don't put this much pressure on hardly any other aspect of our ethical life - certainly not in regard to materialism, gluttony, pride or abuse of power.) Just for starters this sort of approach leaves the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery on the outside, precisely where Jesus did not leave them. Though we don't know the full conversations we do know this much. Jesus says to the former in John 8, go and sin no more; while we don't know how hard that might have been for her it is hard to imagine that Jesus gave her a one strike and you are out rule to follow. In the case of the Samaritan woman in John 4, he simply acknowledges her painful life as an invitation for her to see herself afresh and to see herself hopefully, while simultaneously inviting her into his kingdom where all of her life can be open to his salvation over time. So, we need to change our approach if we are to make the gospel good news for the world with regard to sex and sexuality. We need to make it clear that everyone is welcome in the church regardless of sexual history, or sexual orientation. It is within the church, the new community and, by virtue of our being together Christ's body, the new humanity - it is within the church that each of us are to submit our lives to Jesus as his disciples and seek to help each other understand how to make a faithful journey with regard to sex and sexuality.

Questions for discussion:

1. What role does fear play in the tendency among some Christians (maybe some of us) to want to give the impression that you have to have it all together before you can come in the church? How is this posture hypocritical?

2. Why do you think we often want to make people behave in a certain way before we will have anything to do with them, much less be comfortable sharing communion with them at the Lord's table?

3. What sort of disciplines and practices should you engage in during the course of any given week to help you be open to God's spirit in every part of you?

4. Do you think the degree to which one acknowledges that one is forgiven is likely going to be the degree to which one responds to God's leading in every part of our lives? If yes, why? If no, why not?

5. Do you think Grace Chicago should spend some time as part of our soon-to-be-revived lecture series talking about sex and sexuality?

The Eyes of the Lord are on the Righteous

2010-05-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

please excuse what are probably a ridiculous number of typos.... very busy day....

We have come to a place in 1 Peter where some of the themes we met earlier in the letter come into focus again around the issue of suffering for one's relationship with Christ. Upon their conversion, Peter's brothers and sisters in Western Asia Minor found themselves immediately disenfranchised from the Roman social order; we think for the most part they would have experienced the sort of ostracising that would have moved them to the margins of society. The questions on every one's minds in this scenario would have probably been something like these: What have I gotten myself into? Is my experience with God and this new community of church real, genuine and worth the suffering I have now experienced? Why does God not vindicate his followers? I suggest these sorts of questions because it seems to me that these are the kinds of questions he is answering in his letter.

Early in the letter, Peter employs the categories of exile and alien (1:1, 2:11) to his brothers and sisters. In so doing he wants them to understand their role in the world as one which is connected to God's redemptive work in the world from the beginning of time. Abraham was a stranger, a wanderer, an exile when God worked through him to establish Israel; Israel had no home in Egypt but God redeemed them and gave them a home; and when Israel was exiled due to apostasy God did not abandon her but made promises of redemption to her. It is this latter period that Peter actually names at the beginning of his letter when he greets them as exiles of the dispersion (or, diaspora). So, remarkably and startlingly, Peter encourages these Gentile converts to see themselves as a new addition to God's ancient people; as such, they are the ones who are inheriting God's promises and through whom God is working to bring redemption to the world. They are a royal priesthood and a holy nation and are meant to mediate God's presence to the world in words and deeds (2:9-12). So, the answer to the question, what have I gotten myself into? is that they have gotten themselves into the mainstream of God's redemptive work in the world. Is the new community gathered around the resurrected Jesus real, genuine, and worth the suffering? Yes! Because of Jesus' resurrection (1:3) they and we are to believe that the darkness and evil of this world has been judged by God and has no future in God's world to come. Life apart from Christ is characterized as futility and like the grass and flower, will fade. God's work through Christ, though, endures forever (1:17-22). The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone (2:8,9). Why does not vindicate his followers? The answer to this question leads us to the verses we took up this Sunday and will consider again next Sunday.

In 3:8-18, Peter encourages the community to understand their suffering as itself a sign of their vindication - a bizarre notion and completely ridiculous if not for the resurrection, and we think here of the words of theologian Robert Jensen: "Jesus resurrection makes possible saying yes to ways of living that simply make no sense otherwise". One of the great themes of the OT is the suffering of the righteous and the promise of God's vindication of them. Peter invokes this theme in his citation of Psalm 34: "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." But he follows this with a rhetorical question which invites his audience to see themselves as the righteous upon whom the Lord's eyes rest, while simultaneously suggesting that vindication is tied fundamentally to identification with Christ and his mission in this world - not with the absence of suffering at the hands of the evil. "Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?" Well, lots of people will which gives rise to the occasions Peter addresses in the previous verses (i.e. do not return evil for evil but good for evil, etc.). Peter's main point here is to continue to help his people to have a deeper conversion of their imagination. Here Joel Green's words are helpful:

"The issue is this: life-events do not come with self-contained and immediately obvious interpretations; rather we conceptualize them in terms of imaginative structures that we take to be true, normal, and good. As a rule the world at large casts a thick dark cloud of despair over experiences of suffering, distress, trials and alien status. Peter insists that such experiences on the part of his audience must be read according to a radically different pattern of thought - one that grows out of new birth."

So here, we are taught to read the proverbial language of the OT with a conversion of the imagination, specifically through the lens of suffering with Jesus as we live out his mission in a world that still opposes his righteousness. God does vindicate the righteous and his eyes are on them but, as we mentioned before suffering for one's association with Christ becomes the sign of vindication; the proberbial language of God's protection of the good is given a gospel saturated meaning, because the axioms articulated here find their center in a recalibration of the universe - a recalibration for which there is evidence in the OT of the long tradition of the suffering of the righteous, and which has now received the divine imprimatur in the life. death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Green)."

For these early Christians to whom Peter is writing, they were able to ascertain quite quickly that their new lives were against the stream of the broader society and culture. The culture told them by marginalizing them and subjecting them to opposition. This is not so much the case for us in our situation in our socio-cultural setting. Not to belittle the suffering that many have received through being rejected by their families and friends because of their faith in Christ but we simply do not have anywhere near the same experience that the early Christians did. So, I would argue that the onus is on us to be careful and prayerful as we think about what it means for us to be faithful to Christ within our own cultural setting. It is to this question that we will turn next week.

Questions for discussion:

1. What practices and habits should a Christian engage in regularly to assist her in an ongoing conversion of the imagination? Do you feel that you are where you need to be with these practices and habits?

2. What are some examples of sins that we might easily overlook because there is not as much social pressure on us to recognize our the ways in which we are to be counter-cultural? For example, in Peter's world to confess Jesus as savior and Lord was to immediately blaspheme the emperor and put one's self in peril. Hence, one was always aware of one's loyalties. For us, we are in no great peril from our government when we confess Jesus as savior and Lord. What sorts of things might we not see because of that?

3. The church often treats single people like people who aren't married yet and families are held up as a model of human flourishing in a way that it seems like family life is the preferred way to serve the Lord. Do you think the church has not understood how to swim against the stream in this category?

Loving Enemies For God's Sake

2010-05-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

We continued our reflections on 1 Peter 2 and 3 again this week. For my point of departure I referred back to the imaginative and challenging words of last week's preacher, Aaron Kuecker. Peter wanted his fellow Jesus-followers to train each other to ask themselves tough, mission driven, gospel focused questions when they considered how to respond to those who had authority over them. Aaron suggested that Peter wanted his people, in the face of criticism and oppression, when imagining how they might respond, to ask themselves questions like this: " 'What is best for the Gospel?' Or, put more provocatively and to the point, 'What is best for my enemy?' (Kuecker)."

As I write this recap, I wonder how many of us at Grace have grown tired of hearing homilies and reflections on Jesus' call to love our enemies? We have been talking about it for a while. Some of us may be asking ourselves, "is this aspect of the Gospel being overemphasized in our community?". Good question. I have been asking myself that question recently. The issue at hand, however, is that Peter, in 1 Peter, makes this issue a major concern. The call to ".... stumble in the footsteps of the enemy-loving God.... (Volf)", is on the top of Peter's mind as he pictures the priestly role of the Christian community as the mediator of God to the world. So, we'll linger on this important topic as long as Peter does, as we continue to move through the study of this epistle.

There is a sense in which Jesus' call to love our enemies should make us uncomfortable - but uncomfortable in a good way. Really - who can hear these words and not be taken aback? "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:35....)." Kind to the wicked?! Yes. This is the way God is and it is the way we are to strive to be.

There is much talk in the church today about the need to be missonal. Many are making the very helpful argument that the only way for the church in the West to experience revival is by understanding that it exists not for itself but to demonstrate God's love in word and deed to those who have not yet heard, experienced, and become convinced of God's love for them. This is all very helpful. However, at the core of what it means to be missonal is to know how to love and bless one's enemies and I don't hear this talked about enough. In a world where people are becoming each other's enemies increasingly and at an increasing rate, loving and blessing our enemies may very well be the most important thing we Christians are known for. This might be the unique prophetic word that, in our generation, can awaken the life-giving collision between the powers of darkness and the light of the Gospel. This may be the message which when enacted, to paraphrase Kierkegaard, will preach to life the possibility of offense. For, "nly the possibility of offense (the antidote to the apologists' sleeping potion) is able to waken those who have fallen asleep, is able to break the spell so that Christianity is itself again (Kierkegaard)."

So, we live out the story of God's love for the whole world when we bless our enemies; and we practice enemy-love for the sake of the enemy coming to know God. We must take care, however, not to think of this approach as a missionary strategy or methodology. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it: "The basis for the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is not what works but rather the way God is..... God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish." Loving and blessing one's enemies is "the missionary side of following in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah..... It is..... part and parcel of Christian identity itself (Volf)". This is an identity we seek to acquire, as individuals and corporately as a church community, as Christ is formed in us. When we become more at home with the notion that this way of life is not a stratagem but simply how God shows his love to the world we are much more likely to be a community of people who point away from themselves and towards the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ.

Questions for discussion:

1. This came up in another recap some time ago but I think it is one of those questions that gets us thinking about issues of spiritual formation in such a deep and meaningful way that it bears asking again in the context of the discussion above. My minister friend Cuck DeGroat at City Church, San Francisco has urged us to see that "enemy love" is necessary when dealing with ourselves. "I’ve seen healing and transformation when men and women begin to love their enemies, even their inner enemies. These unreconciled parts of ourselves which live in extreme conflict cannot thrive.... And like the Prodigal Son and his Elder Brother, they need to be invited to a feast of reconciliation and redemption. You can only thrive as you become the Father in the great story, as the new and redeemed self led by Christ races out to both the Prodigal and the Elder Sons with an embrace of love and compassion. Transformation begins when you kiss the demon on the lips (DeGroat)". What do you make of Chuck's remarks? Do you find them helpful? Do you think you do pretty good job of preaching the Gospel to yourself?

2. On Sunday I said that if you pull the strand that is God's call to love our enemies out of the Gospel that the whole garment will come unraveled. Can you think of ways in which your experience of God's grace and love has been diminished by a refusal to bless, pray for, or love an enemy?

3. Why is it important that, in the words of Kierkegaard, the Gospel give offense, creating collisions between how the world thinks and how God is?

4. Why is it important to draw a distinction between strategy and identity when it comes to practicing enemy-love?