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?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Ascencion into Pentecost
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?
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?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Ascension Sunday
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?
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?
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Recap from Tim Bowyer's Homily
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?
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?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
No Other Name
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?
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
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?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Weight of God's Love
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 puriļ¬ed 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?
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: "
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?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Good Shepherd (Part One and Part Two)
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?
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...
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?
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