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"?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Christ The King Sunday
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?
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?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
growing pains part 3 coming to terms with money (2)
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?
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?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Growing Pains 2 - coming to terms with money
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?
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?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Growing Pains (Part 1)
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?
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?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
rescue us from evil
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?
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?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Question Will Be: Have you shown mercy!?
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?
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?
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