Contra Factum

Your Priest is Pilate and Judas (and so are you)

2011-09-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

Peopleget up in arms sometimes about the symbols that we use around the Eucharist.That's fair. If people don't know what's going on, then it makes sense to beafraid that they are having the wool pulled over their eyes. And, if they getthe sense that the priest doesn't know what's going on either (!), then itmakes sense to get very uncomfortable.

Theproblem is complicated because we are centuries beyond what these formsoriginally meant. We have layers and layers of accreted meaning on simple acts(like the use of incense for odour control!). What should we do? Should wethrow them all out? No, I say. Let's give our fathers and mothers in faith thebenefit of the doubt. Let's assume that they had something important to do orsay with these forms, and let's open our liturgical and theologicalimaginations to explore the meaning that might be found there.

Take twoquintessentially 'catholic' forms: ritual hand washing and kissing the altar.Priests often have their fingers washed before the beginning of the GreatPrayer of Thanksgiving. It seems to represent a washing away of sin and linesup with the Old Testament images of the priests washing themselves inpreparation for their priestly service. But, if you haven't seen it before, itcan strike you as a little odd. Why is it there?

Also, insome higher church parishes, it is customary to lean down and kiss the altarduring the service. This has been seen as a kiss of homage and obedience, asMichael Hunt puts it. It may also be a kiss reverencing the place where theHoly Spirit changes the earthly elements into spiritual food and drink. Eitherway, it can make many of us uncomfortable.

One ofthe amazing things about the Eucharistic liturgy is that it retells the storyof the Passion. It starts with the "Blessed is he who comes in the name ofthe Lord" as Jesus enters Jerusalem. It continues through recounting theevents of the Last Supper. It culminates in the breaking of the bread that bothrepresents and re-presents the broken body of Christ. The offer then of thebread and wine is a hopeful sign of Christ's resurrected and living presenceamong us.

If the'narrative' of the Eucharist puts us in the story of the Passion, where mighthand-washing and a kiss fit in?

It fitswith the prototypical rejecters of Christ. Pilate washes his hands. Judasbetrays with a kiss.

Whatwould it mean to see these symbols as re-presenting not only the sanctity ofthe Passion but also the priest's (and our own) complicity in Christ's death?What if we saw every kiss as the kiss of the betrayer as well as the kiss of homage and obedience? What if we saw thehand washing as simultaneously a sign of handing Christ over to the crowd and being made clean by his sacrifice? Mightthat draw us into the Eucharist differently? Perhaps more faithfully? Wouldthat be enough to salvage these catholic practices for the evangelicalproclamation of the Gospel?

Your priest is Pilate and Judas. And so are you.

[Photo by Rick Jernberg]

God's Good News for the Poor

2011-09-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church is meeting 15-20 September in Quito, Ecuador. Many of the sessions have involved giving on-the-ground introductions to liberation theology, "a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions" (Wikipedia).

In the 16 September update from the Episcopal News Service, a curious sentence crept in:

All three speakers spoke of how the principles of liberation theology, which is God’s good news for the poor, can speak to our various church contexts.

Granted, this is part of a press release, prepared by members of the HoB likely at the end of a long day of work. In that context, I would be surprised if I could string together a coherent set of sentences, much less something polished enough to publish with ENS.

However, given that caveat, this still strikes me as a rather odd way to put it. The sentence seems to be saying that liberation theology itself, which only began in any formal way in the 1950's, is itself God's good news for the poor! Can that be right?

Alternatively, we could read it to say that the "principles of liberation theology" are God's good news for the poor. I imagine this is a little better, because the principles of liberation theology, as the next sentence put it, are involved with "authentic biblical witness today." However, even this sounds strange, since even though liberation theology's principal theologian Gustavo Gutierrez articulated God's "preferential option for the poor," he still emphasized praxis over doctrine, which sounds rather like emphasizing practice over principles or at least raising practice to the level of principles.

Liberation theology by itself cannot be God's good news for the poor. If that were true, then the poor received no good news from God before the 1950's. The principles of liberation theology aren't either. At its best, those principles are generalities taken from Scripture. They can be great, but they cannot be God's good news for the poor because the Bible by itself is not that either.

But by grace the Bible does show us the way. It points to God's good news for the poor and that good news is not a set of principles, no matter how faithful, but a Person who lived, died, and was raised again, stripping the authorities and rulers of their oppressive power and calling a people to witness to this reign in the here and now in part by taking the side of the weak against the strong. We do ourselves a disservice when we equate this or that theological movement with God's good news for the poor, whether we do it intentionally or not. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he is the one who fights for us, who pours himself out on the cross for all of us, especially the weak, marginal, and oppressed, and raises us up with him into newness of life.

I suspect, if asked, those three speakers on the 16th would agree substantially with these thoughts. I think we would agree that it would have been better had all three spoken of how the Person of liberation theology, who is God's good news for the poor, could speak to our various church contexts today. He can, and is, we pray, through the speakers' ministry to our bishops in Quito. May the Lord bless them all richly.

[Photo by Dimitri Castrique]

Christianity, a word among the words?

2011-09-07T06:34:00.000-05:00

In the Incarnation, the Word becomes a word among words, or so said David Bentley Hart in his The Beauty of the Infinite. This idea came to mind when I read a new blog over at Cranmer's Curate.

There the author quotes a woman overheard on the BBC saying this about the mandatory acts of public worship at her school:

"We are a very multi-cultural school and were we to mention Jesus it would exclude some of our students."

The Curate promises a cool appraisal and then promptly, and very un-coolly, calls the woman a "high priestess of political correctness."

While it is plain that the UK is a post-Christian nation and that it would take a radical shift in culture for it to be at ease again with its Christian orientation, I don't think the best route is fulmination. Perhaps the answer is to let Christianity become, as its Lord did, a word among the words. For too long, Christianity was THE word among words, and it alliance with political power in the UK only problematized the faith's relationship to the Commonwealth.

Perhaps it is time for the church to enter graciously into its own kenosis, not counting equality with God as something to be grasped, but taking upon itself the form of a servant in order to proclaim the true Lordship of Christ in our secular age.

The Response of Faith (Baptismal Covenant, part 3)

2011-08-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

(continued from here)

The Book of Common Prayer talks about Covenant as well. The story of Abram and the firepot puts our biblical understanding of covenant in the realm of God's unilateral grace. What understanding does the Prayer Book have?

The BCP makes a distinction between the Covenant God has made and the covenant we make with God and with one another

In response to the question, "What is meant by a covenant with God?" the Catechism responds, "A covenant is a relationship initiated by God, to which a body of people responds in faith" (BCP, 846).

There are two movements in this answer. The first is the relationship initiated by God. This aspect of covenant we have already seen in the story of Abram and the firepot. The second is our response in faith. The first is God's movement towards us. The second is our movement towards God. But, the Catechism does not say that the Covenant is both of these movements. No, "a covenant is a relationship initiated by God." We respond to the gracious, unilateral covenant in faith.

The Catechism distinguishes between the Old and New Covenants, but it maintains God's gracious, unilateral movement in each. Any talk of a Baptismal Covenant falls squarely under the rubric of the New Covenant, however.

Q. What is the New Covenant?

A. The New Covenant is the new relationship with God given by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to the apostles; and through them, to all who believe in him (BCP, 850).

This gracious, unilateral movement of God towards us in Christ demands a response. The response that Christ requires is summarized in the Catechism by the Summary of the Law (You shall love the Lord your God… and You shall love your neighbor as yourself) and the New Commandment (Love one another as Christ loved us) (BCP, 851).

The New Covenant is God's gracious movement towards us (and our human response towards God) in Christ. Our response in faith is lived out in the Summary of the Law and the New Commandment. The Baptismal Covenant found in the Book of Common Prayer is nothing more than an exegesis of these two responses to the New Covenant of grace. In other words, the Baptismal Covenant gives us nothing more than can be 'proved' from Holy Scripture. Even if the Episcopal Church did not express the Baptismal Covenant in the way they do, the same ordinances are incumbent upon all Christians. Formalizing a minimum standard of discipleship in this way adds nothing to what Christ our Lord himself demanded of his followers. If anything, it helps us along the way.

The Baptismal Covenant consists of eight questions and answers. The first three comprise the Apostles' Creed. They are "Do you believe?" questions. The remaining five are about the Christian life. They are "Will you do?" questions.

Questions 1-2 outline Christianity's 'portable narrative.' This is the story that Christ followers believe about the past so that they can follow Christ in the present. Following Christ in the present is the theme of the remaining questions, each of which characterizes the baptized life by a different but interrelated aspect. The baptized life is the life of the Spirit (q. 3-4), the life of Proclamation (q. 5-6), and the life of Service (q. 7-8). In abstraction, we might say that the baptized life is the life of Spirit-empowered Witness.

In the next installment, we will discuss articles 1-2.

(image from John Goodwin, et. al.)

The Baptismal Covenant, Part 2

2011-08-08T14:00:00.001-05:00

Photo by Billy Alexander

Several weeks ago, I started a series on the Baptismal Covenant, found starting on p. 304 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Today, I want to continue our discussion around the idea of covenant. This week we will explore a biblical image of God's covenant making. Next week, we will talk about the way the Baptismal Covenant is portrayed in the Book of Common Prayer.

Abram and the Firepot

Genesis 15 contains a curious story. In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Genesis 13 sees Abram parting ways with Lot. In Genesis 14, Abram goes to war to rescue Lot and afterwards is blessed by the enigmatic prophet-king Melchizedek. Genesis 15 sees Abram receiving a vision from the Lord.

God promises Abram many things, including descendants as numerous as the stars. When Abram asks how he will know that he will possess it, the really strange stuff begins.

God asks Abram to bring a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Abram cuts them in two and places them across from one another; a bloody path lies between. This was a customary way to seal a covenant between two parties. They would walk among the pieces as they made the deal, essentially saying "If I don't hold up my end, let it be to me as it is to these animals."

But God does not let Abram walk through the pieces. Abram falls into a deep sleep, and a firepot and a torch passed between the pieces. "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'To your descendants, I give this land …' (Gen 15:18)." It is as if God says, "You and I are in this covenant, but I take full responsibility for it, both for you and for all generations."

I've heard this called God's 'unconditional' covenant. I don't think this is quite fair. God's expectation is "Walk before me and be perfect," and the OT is full of God threatening through the prophets to remove the covenant from Israel. The covenant carries blessings and curses. It is a dreadful thing to be in covenant with God, as the name "Israel," "the one who struggles with God," attests. But, even if the covenant is not unconditional, it is at least unilateral. It is God's desire to establish covenant with humanity. There is a willing human partner, but God does not meet Abram halfway. God comes all the way to Abram and pitches his tent with the children of Israel. God graciously moves toward humanity, and this movement is unilateral, full of promise and life. It makes a people where there was no people.

If the Baptismal Covenant is meaningful in the broad sweep of the biblical narrative, then it must be meaningful in relationship to this, the establishment of the Old Covenant, as well as the living out of the New Covenant inaugurated in Jesus Christ. Next post, we will explore the way the Book of Common Prayer talks about Covenant, and the relationship of the Baptismal Covenant to the Old and New Covenants attested in Scripture.

I help people talk to God

2011-08-01T14:00:00.007-05:00

Photo by Steve Todey

"What do you do?"

"Uhhh…."

Notice that when people ask you what you do, they are asking about an action, not an identity statement.

We all know this awkward conversation:

"So, what do you do?"

"I'm an accountant."

"Oh, ummmm. What do accountants do?"

Claiming an identity in response to a question about activity can shut down a conversation. Conversations are like a friendly match of volleyball. Both sides take turns hitting the ball back and forth over the net. They're not trying to score points, just spending time together. In the situation above, responding with "I'm an accountant" interrupts this friendly game with a surprise spike. It leaves your conversation partner diving and scrambling to return the ball.

In the book, How to Talk to Anyone, the author Leil Lowndes suggests a course of action for this dinner party stock question. She calls it the "Nutshell résumé."

A nutshell résumé is designed to answer the "What do you do?" question straight-on while giving your conversation partner something to latch onto. It deposits information into the conversation and gives the other person a lot of time, space, and options in returning the ball.

"I’m an accountant" could become "I help individuals survive tax day," or "I keep my company financially honest," or even, "I help people hide their money." Any of these are better for small talk than "I'm an accountant."

Turning now to the priesthood. If "I'm an accountant" can maim a conversation, then "I'm a priest" shoves it out an airlock into the cold heart of space. What are some options for nutshell résumés for priests?

Here's a list of possibilities:

I help people find God
I introduce people to God

I help people thrive

I help people find who they really are
I help people live in tune with the earth

I help people live in tune with the world

I help people live in tune with God

I introduce people to Jesus Christ

I'm a spiritual midwife

I lead people to the throne of God

I help people discover the secret of the world

Each of these has its own resonances. All of them are true in their own way, and they each provide different options for expanding the conversation.

But, I finally alighted upon something else entirely: "I help people talk to God."

Priests help people talk to God. We do. It's wrongheaded to think that people have to come to us to talk to God. We're coaches. We come alongside our parishioners to equip them to be the royal priests that God has called them to be in their secular vocations.

And think of the ways that a stranger might take that answer. "Oh, how do you do that?" "Which God is that?" "What kind of people can talk to God?" "What set you on that course?" "Can you help me talk to God?" Any direction the conversation goes from there is evangelism of one sort or another. Any conversation that follows is an opportunity to invite a new acquaintance further into your life, which is hidden with Christ in God.

I can hardly wait until my next cocktail party so that I can try it out.

Are you a minister? How do you introduce yourself at parties?

SERMON: Jesus Keeps His Promise, A Sermon for Pentecost

2011-07-25T14:00:00.005-05:00

Date: June 12, 2011

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Note: This was the last sermon I preached at St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Riverdale. St. Matthew's was full of wonderful people to serve, and they taught me to love the Church in all of its shapes and sizes. Thanks be to God for them.

I have already admitted to you how big a fan I am of Star Wars. One or two Christmases ago, one of my family members bought me a giant book called, Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy. That’s right, a pop-up book. There is a different paper sculpture that springs into being as I turn each page. One page displays the Mos Eisley cantina, complete with an assortment of aliens, droids, and the famous cantina band; the next brings to life the Millenium Falcon, with a look inside its famous hull. Each page brings to life a new world of hidden panels and light-up lightsabers to explore. And if you turn the page slowly, you can see the slow folding of one world and the slow unfolding of the next. If you stop, with the page straight up in the air, the two worlds hang there, one almost gone, the other almost here. And this tension, this excruciating exhilaration of being-in-between, happens each time you turn the page.

[1]

There is something of that in-between-ness in the air as the gathered crowds fill the Temple in Jerusalem that Pentecost after Jesus was crucified. Jesus’ death and the rumours of his resurrection had been the buzz of the town, but the buzz has dulled over these last 50 days. Many of the city’s visitors, having saved for years to make the long Passover trip to Jerusalem, choose to stay for the Pentecostal feast before they make their way home to the far corners of the Empire. Adding to the number of stayers, many other pilgrims stream into the city for Pentecost, the annual celebration of covenant renewal.

The Temple courts are full. There are people and priests praying, animals lowing and yelling. The commotion is constant, never ceasing. Everyone is there together worshipping God.

It’s easy to overhear what people are saying. One group is animatedly discussing those 50 day old crucifixions. Another cluster claims to have seen Jesus’ followers in these very courts, the Temple courts, blessing God. They’re here so often that it’s a little strange that they are nowhere to be found today.

The crowd continues walking, worshipping, praying.

Then they hear it. It’s loud. It sounds like a tornado has hit Jerusalem, or a giant dust storm, or a violent wind. It is so loud that the Temple courts go quiet. People strain to see where the sound might be coming from; some duck behind friends or run towards the Temple’s inner courts. When the loud rushing sound suddenly ceases, those left standing lean forward to listen.

A smaller sound meets their ears from outside the Temple courts. It sounds like a group of people crying for help! The words are all mixed up together; the crowd is still too far away to hear what’s really going on. The people closest to the Temple gates start to exit first to see what the commotion is about. The rest begin to follow. As they get closer, they hear the voices growing more distinct. They round the corner and see a group of people through the large open window of an upper room. They are standing as though praying, and as people get closer some of the crowd begin to smile and nod in understanding. One particularly vocal member of the group exclaims loudly, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? […] In our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:7-11)! All were amazed and perplexed. The whole crowd begins to turn in on itself. The genuinely curious ask, “What does it mean?” The openly skeptical respond, sneering, “They are filled with new wine.”

[2]

The sneering, skeptical response is a temptation that we all face when something radically new enters our lives. This cynicism is a type of self-armouring. We use it to put distance between ourselves and the fantastic opportunity or the call to service. It’s a crossing of the arms, a shaking of the head, a turning down of the mouth. When something dramatically new enters our world, we get cynical just like the Pentecostal sneerers, and we cast about for an easy explanation (“They are filled with new wine”).

A couple of good friends of ours took Monique and me to visit the Black Creek Pioneer Village. It was winter, and a fresh snow blanketed the ground. We visited period homes and shops, each one decorated for Christmas in a different way. The doctor’s home was striking, decorated in a Scottish style. We learned about Christmas traditions and the practice of medicine in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The doctor’s office was a room in the house, and our guide showed us the instruments for tooth extractions, amputations, and blood-letting.

We got into a discussion about germs. Our guide told us the story of the first man who proposed that student doctors should wash their hands after they dealt with cadavers and before they delivered babies. He was laughed out, released, and eventually locked away in a mental hospital. It took a long time before the medical profession finally woke up. In fact, the younger physicians first picked up the idea. The older generation refused to adapt. They crossed their arms, shook their heads, and sneered at the young people who thought they needed to wash up before doing surgery. With the benefit of hindsight we wonder why they would resist the growing body of evidence that germs really do have an impact on the success of surgeries. Our guide put it this way: to admit the germ theory was for this older generation of doctors to admit to their communities, to their profession, and (hardest of all) to themselves that they for their entire careers had been killing patients. Their cynicism about the new science was a shield protecting them from the horrible, horrible truth.

And so it continues with us. Often when we find ourselves being cynical and sneering, especially about the things of God, it is because we are trying to protect ourselves. As the page turns and the old world folds up and the new one is revealed, cynicism and sneering cling to the old. It refuses to repent. It refuses to do what is necessary to live in the new day.

[3]

The 12 disciples, Jesus’ mother Mary, and the other women who traveled with them are gathered in the upper room. They can walk into a new day; they can move from one page to the next, because Jesus keeps his promise.

Just a few short days before Pentecost, they had been with Jesus on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem. He made them a promise, “You are witnesses of these things,” he said. “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:48-49). Jesus put it another way, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). These were the last things Jesus said to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. The disciples followed Jesus’ instructions and went back to Jerusalem. There they were always in the Temple courts praising God. They devoted themselves to constant prayer together. They waited and watched, not with cynicism or fear, but with real hope.

Did they feel the page turning? Could they see the world they knew collapsing and a new one taking its place?

When the day of Pentecost comes, they are all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there comes a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it fills the entire house where they are sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appear among them, and a tongue rests on each of them. All of them are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gives them ability (par. from Acts 2:1-4).

When the gathered crowd streams from the Temple courts to see what is the matter, some sneer, thinking the disciples are drunk. Peter stands up among the disciples, raises his voice, and speaks. And from his place at the Father’s right hand, Jesus gives the Spirit which turns Peter from a fisherman into a witness. The witness begins here in Jerusalem, but soon it will spread to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Jesus keeps his promise.

[4]

We set aside this day each year to remember that Jesus, all those years ago, kept his promise to his disciples. And we affirm, with our fathers and mothers in faith, stretching all the way back to the apostles, that Jesus keeps his promises still. That first Pentecost is over, but the Spirit of God that proceeds from the Father and the Son is still at loose in the world. The first Pentecost is over, but each year we remember that the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost still means something to us today.

First, Pentecost means that we are caught up in the same story as the disciples were all those years ago. Just as the apostles’ found themselves at that turning of the page between the old world and the new, so do we find ourselves riding the transition between the present and the end of time. At any moment, we expect that Jesus himself might appear, riding in the clouds, to reclaim the world for himself. We can wait for that time with patience and with hope because of the Holy Spirit’s life among us, shaping us into Christ’s image, feeding us with spiritual food, reminding us not to worry because Jesus keeps his promise.

Second, Pentecost means that we can’t control God. Jesus didn’t give his disciples magic words to summon the presence of God. Yes, we invoke God’s presence in prayer, but our invocation is no guarantee of it. God is not a pet to be trained or an object to be owned. God is the free God. God is the one who loves us precisely in that freedom, which means that we cannot move or force him, but we can know, because of Jesus’ promises, that he is always on the move towards us, and that movement towards us is the Holy Spirit. While we can’t control God, we can put ourselves in God’s way. After the Ascension, the apostles prayed constantly, praising God in the upper room and in the Temple courts. We, too, are called to the life of prayer, both as individuals and as a body of believers. In living the prayerful life, we will put ourselves in the way of the God who in and as the Holy Spirit is on his way towards us even now.

Finally, Pentecost means that we are called to be witnesses. The apostles are given miraculous powers when the Spirit comes, but these powers are not for themselves to have and hold. The power is for witness. The Spirit empowers the apostles to be his witnesses, first in Jerusalem where they were, then in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So too, this Pentecost, does the Spirit empower us to be his witnesses here on First Avenue. It is our Jerusalem, our starting point. It is here that we will learn to be a church that is alive both in and for our neighborhood. It is here that we will stand up and find ourselves speaking into people’s lives, even to people with lives much different than our own, because the Spirit is there as our translator, making sense of the Gospel even for them. It is here that we will find brothers and sisters with whom we can share our lives, committed together to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. For in so doing, we will find ourselves solidly in the way of the God who loves us in Jesus Christ. We will find ourselves empowered by his Spirit to bear witness to God’s love even here. May it be true of us, by God’s grace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Welcome to Contra Factum

2011-07-17T09:28:00.001-05:00

King's College Chapel, Cambridge
photo by Monique Ingalls

If you're visiting Contra Factum after reading my interview in the July 31 edition of The Living Church, a hearty welcome to you! I hope you'll enjoy the site.

My wife Dr. Monique and I are in the midst of a two-stage international move. The first took place this week, when she and I (with the help of the great folk at Wycliffe College) moved our belongings from Toronto to Arkansas. Vilonia, AR is homebase for our summer of visiting friends and relatives before moving to Cambridge (hopefully) in late August. Monique has been awarded the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Popular Music and Culture there. She will teach courses and pursue her own research as a member of the Faculty of Music and as a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College.

It's my hope that Contra Factum will come back to life in the next couple of weeks. I want to continue posting on The Episcopal Church's Baptismal Covenant, and there are other avenues I would like to explore, like mining biblical resources for a 'theology of freedom.'

Welcome, and enjoy!

A Spiritual Exegesis of the Baptismal Covenant, Part 1

2011-05-30T14:00:00.005-05:00

The Baptismal Covenant. Let's talk about it.

If you've seen the comments sections on Anglican blogs, you'll likely have noticed a basic trend when people talk about the Baptismal Covenant. "Liberals" think the BC is a great thing, something to be celebrated. "Conservatives" think the BC is just one more mistake made by the 1979 Prayer Book committee.

Politically, this divide makes sense. Liberals (henceforth, please imagine the scare quotes) use the BC as a way to justify their liberalizing agenda. The last line of the Covenant contains the promise to "strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being." Liberals tend to summarize the whole BC with this promise, a move used to great effect in their ethical arguments.

It's understandable why Conservatives (remember: scare quotes) then want nothing to do with it. In the North American Anglican political and polemical discourse, the BC is the wholly owned subsidiary of the Liberal cause.

In other words, the Baptismal Covenant has become, like so many other shared texts, a source of contention instead of a source of unity.

This is a problem for North American Anglicans (Canadians included) because the BC is part of each and every Baptism we perform. Because of its polemical place in our political struggles, the Covenant has lost its ability to be a shaping influence in our baptizands' lives.

But, what if we tried for a moment to remove the Baptismal Covenant from its polemical setting and let it interpret itself? What if we stood back and in an attitude of prayer performed a spiritual exegesis of that text?

I think we would find something that is not only deeply Anglican but also deeply Christian, biblical, sanctifying, and helpful. I would like to see the BC removed from our political debates and ensconced in the context of the Christian life, in the life of Christians being shaped into the image and likeness of Christ.

We could, as many do, point to the authors (they are still alive) and say we can know the BC's meaning by looking to their intentions in shaping it. But, here's the thing. The BC is part of a conciliar, liturgical document, hallowed now by decades of use. Whatever the authors' original intentions, the BC has a history now, a spiritual effect in people's lives. That effect is informed more by the spiritual world it creates for us than by the BC's polemical context. Its spiritual world is created and nurtured by the deep interconnections of language and practice that hold the Book of Common Prayer together and hold the Prayer Book together with the Bible.

Over the course of the next several weeks, I intend to undertake a spiritual exegesis of the Baptismal Covenant. I will treat the Prayer Book as 'text,' allowing its internal connections to tease out its meaning, in some ways attempting to allow 'it' to explain 'itself' insofar as that is possible. To this layer of meaning we will add the Bible's language, from which the language of much of the Prayer Book (and much of the Baptismal Covenant) is drawn. To use a post-liberal term, this spiritual exegesis is an exercise in first-order language.

I will begin next time with a brief look at the initiation of God's covenant with Abraham and end with an overview of the 'parts' of the Baptismal Covenant and the order in which I will take this spiritual exegesis.

SERMON: Jesus the Cornerstone

2011-05-22T08:00:00.006-05:00

Date: May 22, 2010
Text: 1 Peter 2:2-10

When I was young, my uncle introduced me to quartz crystal. In our backyard, he pointed out some rocks, took us over to them, and showed us the smoky translucent crystals hidden within. He said that they had probably been spit out of a volcano some million or two years ago, something quite unbelievable in flat Houston, TX. It opened a whole new world to me, and soon I was taking my dad’s sledgehammer and breaking rocks all over our yard. Some were small; others were quite large. Of the crystals discovered, I kept a collection. Over the course of a summer, what once were just rocks suddenly became things of beauty and discovery.

[1]

Our second lesson is taken from St. Peter’s first letter. He writes to a group of people who made that same type of discovery. Peter says that their life before was one of darkness, aloneness, and the absence of God’s mercy. But now, because of their discovery, something has changed. Though they were once dwelling in darkness, they have come into God’s marvelous light. Though they were once alone, they now have a people they can call their own. Though they were once outside of God’s mercy, they now have experienced it firsthand.

And here’s where rocks enter the picture: Peter admonishes his hearers to draw near to what he calls the ‘living stone,’ a stone that was chosen by God and precious, intended to be used as the cornerstone of God’s new Temple on earth. The believers themselves will become stones in this building. But first Peter tells them a story, a story about this chosen and precious living stone.

When God put the cornerstone down, there were builders in Zion, hired by God to build his Temple. They were intimately familiar with all of God’s ways and works; God had been working with them for a long time. They knew his designs. When God found the cornerstone to start his new building, he gave it to the builders he trusted.

But instead of proving trustworthy, they did the unthinkable. They rejected this living stone, the cornerstone. It was as if they had said, “We know what the building is supposed to look like, and this doesn’t fit in with how we see it.” They set it aside and began to build on their own.

But that cornerstone, chosen and precious of God, could not be used for anything other than its purpose. They thought it would work better as part of the wall, but they couldn’t budge it, couldn’t make it fit into place. They thought they might break it and divide its pieces among them for various projects, but the stone just rang as their chisels broke against it. And when they tried to ignore the stone, they found it always in their way. They stumbled over it. They fell. They could not finish their work because the cornerstone had become a rock of stumbling. In other words, they could not finish because they would not start where God wanted them to start. The builders had rejected the cornerstone.

[2]

Tobias Fünke

It would be hard for us to blame them. We live in a society here in North America where we are constantly advised to build our lives on nothing save our desires, our passions, and our dreams. We, the builders of our lives, are told that we need no touchstones, no cornerstones. All we need is to be true to who we really are. We don’t want to build our lives on anything but ourselves.

A good example of this comes from the odd and off-color TV comedy Arrested Development. All of the characters in the show are baseless. They are wealthy and so are not constrained by anything. They can do whatever they want; they can follow any dream. One of the characters is named Tobias Fünke.

Tobias is tall and mostly bald. Gangly. Strange and a little ugly. He is a difficult character to watch because he has, well, no life. He began his professional career as a successful psychological analyst and therapist, helping people to look deep inside themselves to discover the root of their problems. But then, he looked deep inside himself. There he discovered that he was an Actor, with a capital “A.” This revelation turned his world upside down. He quit his job and started pursuing roles anywhere that he could, living off his wife’s family’s wealth as he pursued his dream. The problem? Arrested Development takes delight in showing its audience, again and again, how irredeemably bad an actor Tobias actually is. The darkly funny part of the whole thing is Tobias’ obliviousness. He thinks he has talent, and whenever he comes face-to-face with his weakness, he refuses to see it. He shuts it out. He tries to build his house around a dream instead of the solid rock of his professional training or his family or the reality of his own strengths and weaknesses.

Am I right to think that you and I are often tempted to live this way? I think so. We find ourselves refusing to build our houses around the solid things of our lives. Instead, we build them around our egos, our dreams, our passions. We learn to shield ourselves from criticism. We learn to pretend that the world is like we want it to be instead of the way it really is. Now, we might try to take reality and fit it into a wall we’re building or to break it up for other parts of our house, but we can’t. Reality sits there ready to be built upon. But as we ignore it, we find ourselves tripping over it, falling, breaking. We find ourselves building on the sand until one day everything we build comes tumbling down.

[3]

But the good news that Peter proclaims to his hearers is this: in the midst of a world in which God’s builders had started building their houses on sand, God set a stone in Zion, and this stone was Jesus Christ.

Jesus, God’s own Son, was chosen and precious in God’s sight. God set Jesus in Zion as a cornerstone. He was the one upon which God’s Kingdom would be built. He was the one that if people would only believe in him, they would never be put to shame. But, as we know, the builders rejected the cornerstone and tried to build on their own. To them, Jesus became a ‘stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.’ Their rejection saw Jesus hung upon a cross.

But, God’s love for Jesus, his precious cornerstone, meant that God would not let his chosen one see decay; the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ raised him from the dead. The Living Stone still stands, and it is upon this stone that Peter calls his hearers to be built. “Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,” he instructs, “to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Later, he adds, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

For the people who first heard this letter read in their churches, they received a great gift. Even though they were not Jewish, even though they did not inherit the promises of God by virtue of their birth, they have received the promises through Jesus Christ. While they once dwelt in darkness, they have come into the marvelous light of God’s love. Though they were once not a people, now they are God’s people. Though they had once not received God’s mercy, now they have. They have a new start, a new beginning. They have the opportunity to let themselves be built up into God’s new Temple on earth, the Church. [They can build their lives on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, God’s chosen and precious cornerstone.]

[4]

Every week, close to the end of our service, immediately after the post-Communion prayer and before the Blessing, we say in unison a small passage from Scripture: “Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation, in the Church and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen” (BAS, 214).

“Infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” We were meant to live for so much more than what our passions or our dreams or our desires can give us. We can live our lives like Tobias Fünke, constantly grasping after a baseless dream, or we can let ourselves be built on the rock of reality, a rock that St. Peter says is no one other than Jesus Christ himself. Now this treads very close to a central mystery of our faith that is expressed beautifully in the collects for Morning Prayer: “O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standing our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom…” (BCP, 11). For Christians, the limitation of obedience (and obedience is nothing more than being conformed to the reality of Jesus Christ) is not ultimately a restriction but a freedom. Disobedience, or building on the shifting sand of our own desires or passions, is slavery. It is slavery to a limited humanity. Obedience, on the other hand, is openness to God’s “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”

What is this infinitely more that human beings are called to? Human beings are called to stand at the boundary-line of heaven and earth, to be, as St. Peter calls us, God’s holy and royal priests, priests that offer spiritual sacrifices that God is delighted to accept. As Christ’s royal priests, we represent the world to God, offering God the things of the earth in our prayers. As Christ’s royal priests, we represent God to the world, as we read the Scripture, listen to the Word preached, and share our faith with others. In all cases, in our lives we offer spiritual sacrifices to God, sacrifices of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.

And all of this happens right here at St. Matthew’s. Being built up into God’s spiritual house, learning to be royal priests, this is the work of the Christian life. It is the reason we gather for worship. It is the reason we join together to serve our community. It is the reason we gather in small groups to learn how to offer the world to God in prayer and offer God to the world in witness. And so I commend our small groups to you again (there’s an announcement in the back of your bulletin). These are lively training grounds for the royal priesthood, where we learn to live our lives together, being built on the cornerstone that is Jesus Christ himself.

As we live quiet and peaceable lives together, praying for all and bearing witness to Christ’s love, we are built up together into God’s new Temple on earth. In the quiet, in the peaceable, in our faithful prayer and witness, built upon the solid cornerstone of Jesus Christ, God’s power, working in us, will do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Through us, our worship, and our service, God will be glorified from generation to generation, in the Church and in Christ Jesus, the chosen, precious, and everliving cornerstone, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reserving the Sacrament

2011-05-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

In my church we reserve the Sacrament. For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, reserving the Sacrament means that we set aside the consecrated bread and wine of the Lord's Supper for future use. It's a helpful practice, especially for those of our shut-in members. We can then take a part of the Sunday's table fellowship to them so that, in effect, they share the same Meal with all of us.

Reserving the Sacrament is tricky for Anglicans because (to my knowledge) it is a Catholic practice tied to the doctrine of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation, put simply, means that in the Eucharistic prayers, God replaces the substance (the 'is-ness') of the bread and wine with the substance of Christ's Body and Blood. While the elements still look, feel, and taste exactly like bread and wine, their reality is Jesus himself: body, blood, soul, and divinity.

The Anglican Church in its historic formularies repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation as "repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," (Article XXVIII) but it is important to note that the difference with Rome on this matter was a dispute over the means of Christ's presence, not the fact of Christ's presence. Article XXVIII goes on to say that the Body of Christ "is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper , is Faith."

Embarrassingly for contemporary Anglican practice, the Article continues, "The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped."

So, we have the catholic practice of reserving the Sacrament. An early Anglican formulary denies that this practice is part of Christ's ordinance. This is, strictly speaking, true. Christ's ordinance includes the Words of Institution and the elements of bread and wine. But, as Anglicans since at least Hooker have maintained, just because something is not explicitly ordained by Christ does not mean it is disallowed. We have to ask whether the practice is repugnant to Scripture, that is, whether it in some way denies or goes against the grain of the story of Christ as told by the Bible.

In other words, we have to ask, as George Sumner did with the indelibility of Holy Orders, whether or not we can find an evangelical argument for this catholic practice. Is there something to which reserving the Sacrament bears witness that we find essential, good, and in accordance with the Scriptures? I think there is.

In brief, reserving the Sacrament means that what happens in space and time matters and continues to matter for our spiritual lives.

Ultimately, there is but one death in space and time that gives meaning to, shapes, illumines, and redeems space and time: the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. As bearers of a Protestant tradition, most Anglicans would say that Christ's death is once-for-all. It does not need repeating. What happened in that specific space (on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem) in that specific time (somewhere around AD 30) matters for all space and time, and it matters not merely as a spiritual event but as a spatio-temporal-spiritual event. What happened in space and time mattered and matters.

In an analagous way we can move to the consecration of the elements in the Eucharist. Some say that the Bread and Wine are just signs. They carry meaning only insofar as they are part of the worship service. Afterwards, the elements could be fed to the dogs because there is nothing special about them at all. In other words, what was once special and important in space and time falls away from that use once the context has passed. Should the materials be saved for the next celebration of the Lord's Supper, they would be prayed over again, just like the previous service had never happened.

But, those of us who reserve the Sacrament maintain by the practice that what happened in a specific place (at the altar at my church in Toronto, for instance) at a specific time (somewhere around 11:45 am on Sunday) continues to matter, even after the worship service ends. The elements, though not changed substantially, still bear the significance of consecration. That past event continues to have significance - once-for-all significance, even - in the case of these specific elements.

Whatever we think about the means by which the Sacrament is Sacrament, reserving it bears witness to an understanding that what happens in the past matters, that bread and wine once set aside are not automatically returned to secular use as soon as the service is over. Reserving the sacrament claims a historical connection with the bread and wine's consecration in space and time, which in turn claims a connection with the once for all consecration of Jesus Christ upon the cross. As St. Paul says, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16, NRSV).

Reserving the Sacrament means that we believe that things of supra-historical (spiritual) significance can happen in and as space-and-time realities. Reserving the living signs and symbols of Body and Blood claims something about the reality, tangibility, materiality, personality, and individuality of the Cross. Because Christ's consecration on the Cross was once-for-all, we practice a once-for-all consecration of the elements that enable our sharing in Christ's consecration by the power of the Spirit in faith.

What do you think about reserving the elements of the Lord's Supper for future use? How does your church practice?

Sermonic Metagaming

2011-05-02T08:00:00.005-05:00

Since a friend of mine dropped the core rulebook on my bed in my second year of undergrad, I have, off and on, run campaigns in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. The technical title is "Gamemaster" or "GM." The GM pulls together the story and set objectives for the players, who each play different characters. The players are free to do whatever they wish with their characters, and it's the GM's job to make sure that the story gets told and told well. An RPG ends up being an exercise in group story-telling, and, I have to say, is one of the best preparations for leading small group discussions I've ever had.

RPGs have rules that govern the physics of the imaginative world that the GM and the players create together. Dice are used to account for the randomness of the player's actions. Just because a player's character is a really good medic doesn't mean that they will always save a person's life. There are innumerable small things in life that effect the results of our actions. The dice simulate that.

Because there are so many rules, it's tempting for players to start metagaming, or playing their characters like the characters have all the knowledge that the player does. A player could, for instance, keep their character from visiting a planet the player knows from the movies is doomed to destruction. Or a player who knows the rules well could make the entire gaming session about disputing the finer points to their maximum advantage.

The common sin? They use knowledge they have of the movies or the rules to distance themselves from the story that the group is telling together.

Sermonic metagaming, a similar phenomenon, happens when preachers use specialized knowledge to distance themselves and the congregation from the story they had to that point been telling together in the liturgy.

When I was first falling in love with the Anglican tradition, I used to joke that the great thing about worship in the Episcopal Church was the most you could mess up was the sermon, and that was only 10 minutes anyway. Having been an Episcopalian now for several years, I can say from experience that sometimes those 10 minutes (or 20 or 30) can be so thoroughly metagamed so as to wreck the whole rest of the service.

I once met a bishop (in another denomination) who boasted to me about a sermon he had recently preached. He proudly told me of stripping the passage from the Pentateuch down to its JEPD sources, showing how the earliest source said something quite different than the redacted whole that his congregants had in their Bibles, and lifting up this reading as the authoritative one. This was the truth that they were to live, he told them, because this is the earliest part of the biblical revelation. He used his specialized knowledge of historical criticism to distance himself and his congregation from the liturgical story they had been telling together, a story predicated upon the biblical witness' canonical wholeness.

Pastors also metagame in their sermons when they talk every week about something they are trying to build in their congregations. "Community" and "authenticity" are popular tropes. The problem is not that these are bad things in themselves. The problem is that ministers often run roughshod over their sermon texts in order to get to them. And, ironically, I don't think we build community or authenticity very well by talking about them. Analysis paralysis seems to set in too quickly. Instead we build them by getting together and telling and living the story week-to-week. A metagamed sermon distracts from the desired goal; it doesn't seem to further it.

Now, I have to say that there are certain places in the church's life where metagaming is important and necessary. The announcements are a time set aside for just that. Adult education is another one of those places, and I would worry if a minister didn't have classes from time to time on historical criticism or the benefits of building a community of authentic believers. But, please consider keeping those things out of the pulpit. They distract and disrupt. They disable the community's participation in the weekly liturgical story. In other words, they draw attention to the preacher or to the congregation when the sermon should be drawing attention to the story of God's gracious and merciful self-giving in Jesus Christ.

Let's stop the sermonic metagaming and get into the story. It's an adventure we shouldn't want to miss.

---

Do you have any stories of sermonic metagaming? Please share below!

The Adventures of the Post-Relevant Church

2011-04-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

My wife, Dr. Monique, and I have great conversations. One day recently, as we discussed my recent Contra Factum post on collared evangelism, she said something that jumped out at me: "Welcome to the adventures of the post-relevant church." Wow, what a phrase. It hit precisely the right note.

So, yes, welcome to the adventure.

The evangelicalism that I grew up in was concerned with 'relevance.' We had to make the Gospel relevant to our culture in order to fulfill the great commission. In college, this concern metamorphosed into a preoccupation with 'context.' The context determines everything, we thought, and it even gives us the incentive to frame the Gospel story in completely different ways, even in ways that our fathers and mothers in faith might be unable to recognize. See, for example, the growth of the megachurch movement, or the absence of the cross from many seeker-sensitive churches, or the equation of worship with emotional experience.

What I realized going to seminary is that evangelicals share the concern with relevance with their sworn enemies: the liberals. They both agree that the Gospel has to be translated into a new key in order to be relevant to the world. They only differ on the amount of 'translation' they are comfortable with.

The problem is that neither camp has done relevance well. When you step back from both the evangelical and liberal attempts to contextualize the Gospel and really look at them, you can see how severely dated they always already are. We in the churches are always find ourselves about 15-30 years behind the curve. That curve is being established in the classrooms of Ivy League universities and the halls of power, not in the Christian popular press.

The crux of the issue is that 'context' and 'culture' are moving targets. By the time that we can publish the book on being relevant to the culture, it has already moved on. As soon as we think we've become relevant, we find ourselves irrelevant again because that to which we calibrated ourselves has already changed.

So what are we left with? An adventure: the adventure of the post-relevant church. We have to stop allowing our churches to act like self-obsessed teenagers; instead, we need to embrace the fact that context just happens. It happens every moment of every day, and it is only in the faithful response to the context in which we actually find ourselves (not in the context imagined for us by the think-tank in Michigan) that the real adventure happens.

We can't catch up with the culture. All we can really do, as Andy Crouch says, is be culture-makers ourselves. Our work is to create a context, to create a space in which God may be found, and to invite others into it in order that they might become relevant to it and therefore relevant to God. (This is the meaning of Baptism, is it not?) In other words, we can only be relevant by being a little strange, by keeping our own council, and by showing hospitality to people who find that the Gospel we proclaim is the scent of life and not the stench of death.

What does the post-relevant church look like? I don't know yet. I think it will probably look different everywhere that faithful men and woman struggle to fashion themselves in the image and likeness of Christ. For me, I think this will mean wearing a collar, introducing myself to strangers, and inviting our parish's neighbours into the life of Christ's Church through Baptism. It will mean talking about sin and grace and encouraging active participation in the sacramental life. It will mean forgetting about myself for a while and just allowing the church where I find myself to be the church that it is ... and the church that it will become. In other words, this is un-self-conscious Christianity, unconcerned with 'relevance,' just concerned with being alive in Christ wherever he has put us.

In this adventure of the post-relevant church, I think we will find that relevance, like context, just happens.

SERMON: Jesus Delays

2011-04-18T07:13:00.000-05:00

Date: April 10, 2011
Text: John 11:1-45

[Introduction] I have a confession to make: I hate my alarm clock. Now, there are some specific features that I enjoy. With one button, I can change the timezone. With another, I can easily set the alarm. It has both an up and down arrow, so if I want to set my alarm earlier than the previous day, I don’t have to scroll through 23 numbers to get back to the hour before. The best feature of all? It shines the current time on the ceiling. It’s invisible during the day but at night when my wife and I are laying without glasses in the bed, it’s just bright and big enough to be readable. That’s what I love about my alarm clock.

What do I hate about it, then? It wakes me up. I like sleeping. My dreams are sometimes the most peaceful part of the day. My alarm clock very rudely steps into that refreshing and relaxing state and yells at the top of its lungs, “Get up!” as it beep, beep, beep, beeps. That’s what I hate about my alarm clock.

[Page 1] Quite unlike my alarm clock which is always on time, in our Gospel passage today Jesus is late. Early on, he gets the news that his dear friend Lazarus is ill. Lazarus’ two sisters Mary and Martha had sent the word. They wanted him to come. They knew that if Jesus was there, he could make everything better and restore Lazarus to health. Instead, Jesus does one of the most frightening and confusing things in the Bible: he delays. “Accordingly,” we hear in the passage, “though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” Even though Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, he does not rush to their aid. He delays. Why?

We could hear the passage and think Jesus was weak or afraid. Given the way Jesus breaks down weeping (weeping so hard that the people point at him and gawk) it could be that Jesus is just too weak to face the pain of his dear friend’s sickness. Or, maybe he is afraid. Lazarus’ town Bethany is just a little over three kilometers from Jerusalem, and the disciples object, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Maybe Jesus delays because he needs to build up the courage to face a possible death. He was human after all.

Alternatively, maybe Jesus wasn’t weak and afraid. Maybe he was callous and capricious. Jesus seems to know that something is up here. He says to the disciples, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (v. 4). A little later, we hear in the story, “Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe’” (vv. 14-15). All of a sudden, Lazarus seems like a tool that Jesus uses to glorify himself. This seems to imply that Jesus is glad Lazarus dies because this way the disciples will believe. What does this make Lazarus then, some kind of collateral damage? Is his death nothing more than a means to an end, a necessary evil in the fulfillment of God’s good plan? Jesus is divine after all. He could see the whole picture. Maybe he is callous towards his friend’s pain and death, using it to his own ends.

Whether Jesus is weak and afraid or callous and capricious, either way, he does the most frightening thing imaginable. Even though he has the power to heal in his hands, even the power to heal from a distance (!), he delays. He does not go to Bethany. He lets Lazarus die.

[Page 2] Since early times, Christians in desperation and despair have prayed, “Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus, come.” But all too often in our experience, Jesus does not come. For some reason, he delays. It is a terrifying experience to know that Jesus could step in and fix it (whatever “it” is) but doesn’t. What kind of Lord is it who allows his creation to continue suffering, continue spiraling out of control, continue giving into hate? What kind of Lord is it that stands at a distance while the world he created suffers from its sickness and dies?

We don’t know most days. So in response to Jesus’ delay, we doubt, hurry, and scramble. We doubt the goodness of a Lord who stands at a distance. We scramble to fix the problem ourselves, rushing to resuscitate the world before it passes away. We start to believe that if Jesus really is absent, then maybe we can find some other person to take his place. Maybe we can find another Christ to stand in for Jesus of Nazareth and fix the world.

Throughout human history, we’ve done this over and over again. In the mid-20^th Century, in the face of a severe post-war economic depression, the German people rallied around a Christ of their own. They put their hope in him. Jesus was not coming, it seemed, so they thought they could retake their former power by force. The Christian cries of “Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus, come” were twisted into the militaristic cries of the Third Reich. These people trusted other people with complete power in hopes that they could resuscitate the world, but they instead set out on a path that resulted in the slaughter of millions.

Jesus’ delay has effects in the history of nations, but it also has profoundly personal effects. When you and I sit alone in our houses, our cheeks wet from tears caused by Jesus’ seeming abandonment, we know what it must have been like to have been those two sisters who called to Jesus in their distress and were not answered, those sisters who mourned the death of a brother that their Lord could have saved but instead for some reason chose to delay.

[Page 3] What those sisters do not know, as they summon and wait for the Jesus who delays, is that Jesus’ love will raise Lazarus from the dead. They know that Jesus loves Lazarus. When they send word to him, the message reads “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (John 11:3). But they cannot comprehend the height, width, and depth of Jesus’ love. In their minds, love means rushing to aid. In their hearts, they believe that when they cry “Maranatha!” that the Lord Jesus is supposed to come quickly. But Jesus’ love, they will find, is something entirely different.

Jesus’ love is confident. When Jesus hears the news about Lazarus’ illness, he turns immediately to his disciples and tells them that Lazarus’ illness does not lead to death (11:4). Instead, God’s glory will be shown through it. A little later, when Lazarus’ illness has swallowed him up in death, Jesus says to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him” (11:11). Jesus is confident that his love for Lazarus will win in a fight against that non-love, that anti-love that is death.

But, Jesus’ love is also compassionate. He does not accept Lazarus’ death with the stoic determination of a movie military commander who sacrifices the lives of his unit for the completion of a higher objective. Even though Jesus’ love is confident in how things will turn out; Jesus’ love also breaks his heart. When Jesus comes to Bethany, first Martha approaches him and then Mary. He receives them both and begins to teach them what it is that what he is about to do will mean. But when Mary kneels at Jesus’ feet and through choked tears says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:32), Jesus’ heart breaks. His spirit is greatly disturbed. His face contorts with pain. He cries out, “Where have you laid him” (11:34)? When he starts walking towards the tomb of the man he loved, he breaks down and begins to weep (11:35). He arrives at the tomb ‘greatly disturbed’ (11:38).

Confident yet broken-hearted, Jesus chokes through his own tears, saying, “Take away the stone” (11:39). When Martha questions him, he turns his swollen eyes to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God” (11:40)? And Jesus prays to the Father, thanking him, allowing the people around to see that there is a relationship of trust between them, one that will empower him to do what’s next. And Jesus now, with eyes puffy and snot drying in his beard, confidently raises his voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

And that is precisely what Lazarus did.

[Page 4] When my alarm clock goes off precisely on time every morning, my brain starts to work. It tries to incorporate the beep, beep, beep, beeps into the fabric of whatever dream that I am dreaming. My brain tries to tame the alarm into something that is a part of my dream world; it tries to make it something that I can ignore.

But, I can’t. Eventually the sheer otherness of the alarm shatters my dreams and brings me startling awake. It’s 5:00 am. It’s time to go running. I am left with a choice. Do I ignore my alarm and retreat to the safety of my dreams? Or do I embrace the real world and walk into the day?

I don’t know if Lazarus had the choice when he heard Jesus calling from the door of his tomb, but we do. When Jesus calls us (“Christian, come out!”), we can get up and start walking in the light, or we can choose to remain children of the darkness, those people who prefer to believe the world’s destructive illusion instead of its illumined reality.

But, one thing is for sure. The life we are living before we hear Jesus’ voice calling, that life is the entombed life, the life of death, the life of the dream world. Jesus’ voice, when it calls us to new life, is painful. It disrupts our slumbering selves. It for the first time snaps our eyes open in shock, in disorientation, in sheer incomprehension.

But if the voice that calls us is the same voice that called Lazarus from the tomb, then we can know that it is the voice of love. It is not the voice that we expected, because we expected God’s love to be the thing that rushes to fix us, that rushes to heal us, that rushes to meet our needs. But, instead, when we hear the voice, we hear it as a voice that has delayed. It did not come when we expected it, as part of our dreams, but as something that intrudes upon and sometimes shatters them. Even though it seems to us like the voice is delayed, it has come precisely at the right time, precisely when God would have us get up and walk out of our tombs into the light of a brand new day.

Jesus’ love called Lazarus from the dead. Jesus’ love calls us into newness of life. Jesus’ love is the reason we gather here this morning. Jesus’ love is what we will soon receive, memorialized, in our hands and in our mouths. Jesus’ love that led him to a cross, that led him through death to a resurrection, that love is the love that is God Himself, God Almighty, God the one and only. He is the One that we adore, that we worship, that we love. Even when he delays, we cannot put another in His place because He alone is the one who loves us enough to call us by name and rouse us from our sleep. He alone is the one that we worship, here in this place and now and forever, world without end. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Spiritual Malpractice

2011-04-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

It's been one of the joys of working in Toronto to have spent time with people on the edges of the church's life. A common thread in their stories is that they used to go to church but then something happened. Usually that something had to do with a minister's behavior. Brow-beating, yelling, being pretentious - you know the lot. Eventually, a phrase surfaced for me to describe this constellation of bad behavior:

Spiritual malpractice.

Doctor's are often accused (and sued) for malpractice. We who acquire the professional degree for ministers, the Masters of Divinity, should also be on the look out for our own malpractice. Wikipedia's definition goes like this:

Malpractice is a type of negligence in which the misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance of a professional, under a duty to act, fails to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty is the proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers damages.

Misfeasance is doing the right thing wrongly; malfeasance is doing the wrong thing; and nonfeasance is the failure to do the right thing. There are many areas in which clergy practice can veer into malpractice. Consider the minister who preaches nothing but sin and never quite gets to grace. (Both liberals and conservative do this far too often.) That's an example of both misfeasance (doing the right act wrongly by never moving from cross to resurrection) and nonfeasance (not doing the right thing of preaching resurrection). Or consider the minister who doesn't provide for the education of the congregation (nonfeasance) or the minister who abuses authority by absolutizing his or her own power (misfeasance). The examples abound.

Talking about spiritual malpractice under all three headings is important because there is very real and damaging spiritual malpractice propagated against parishioners that has nothing to do with sex or money (common examples of malfeasance). It is also important because it gives us a way to name someone's negative experience of the church as an anomaly. Using this language allows us to say that spiritual malpractice, while certainly common, is neither the norm nor the ideal of the Church's life.

The other thing that using this language does for us is remind us that ministers are professionals. We have duties and obligations placed upon us by our profession, just like doctors, lawyers, and business people do. The clerical vocation may be more than a professional one, but it is not less.

In other words, clergy need to be at the very least good functionaries.* We need to know our duties and to do them well. Again, we are more than mere functionaries, but we are not less. If we do not take our mundane responsibilities seriously, how can we be expected to treat our spiritual ones? To avoid spiritual malpractice, we have to start with the mundane, to learn to keep our promises, and to treat people with the respect and care they deserve.

*I have a feeling that both 'high-church' and 'low-church' ministers would react negatively to the language of 'functionaries' for the same reason: clericalism. Whether you believe that the priest is an ontological superhero ('these hands were made for chalices not for calluses') or that the minister has a 'spiritual' vocation that frees him or her from administrative responsibility, the case is the same. Ministers tend to think of themselves more highly than they ought.

SERMON: Living Water

2011-04-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Date: March 27, 2011

Sermon Text: John 4:5-42

Photo by Willam Mittelsteadt

[Introduction] I've heard my whole life that I should get 8-10 glasses of water per day, that drinking water was good for me, that it would make me healthy and strong. I learned this week some of the reasons why water is important for life. It does things I never thought about. It lubricates our lungs. Without water, we couldn't convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. It also helps our digestion. It keeps things, ummm, moving from the mouth on down. But, most interesting to me at the moment because of my family's history, water helps the kidneys get rid of the toxic material that builds up in our bodies. The kidneys collect it, and without water, those toxic things sometimes dry up and harden into kidney stones. Water helps our body remove the poison we carry in our bodies. Water is important to life.

[Page 1] In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus needs water. He sits at a famous well in the Jewish no-man’s land of Samaria. The noon sun beats down on him. He is tired out by his journey, sitting alone while the disciples rush into the neighboring city of Sychar to get food for themselves and for their weak Rabbi. He is so thirsty that when a woman appears carrying her jug to draw water alone in the noonday sun, the first thing he says is, "Give me a drink."

The woman recognizes the oddity of the situation. Here is a Jewish man sitting by the well. Jews don’t normally go through Samaria. On top of that, she’s a woman. Why would a man address her like that? She boldly asks Jesus, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"

Jesus nods with respect. Not many women would talk back in this way. But, instead of repeating his command, he engages her in conversation, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink', you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Now this gets her attention. The woman came to the well to get water, after all. In the dry places around Sychar, she and her people had to draw water from deep in the ground to survive. It was hard work. There was no 'living water' which is what they called streams, brooks, and rivers. There was no living water from which they could easily draw. There was only the day-in and day-out return to the well.

The Samaritan woman is intrigued, so she sets her water-jug down and asks him where to get this living water. But Jesus sees deeper than the woman’s thirst and answers the question that he finds buried there: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Jesus put his finger on something: the woman was not only physically thirsty; she was spiritually thirsty as well. She knew the hard life. She knew what it was like to be used and abandoned. She knew what it was like to be ostracized by her community. (Only outcasts gather water alone.) The thirst she felt in her mouth and throat every day only masked the deeper thirst. Like someone weak from a long journey baking under the noonday sun, her whole being yearned for something else, something greater, something that would satisfy.

[Page 2] We, too, suffer from that deep and hidden thirst. It hides just below the surface and expresses itself as a desire for other things. We feel bored and feel the need for entertainment. We feel like our lives lack meaning and feel the need for worthwhile causes. We feel guilty for all the things we can’t fix and feel the need for self-recrimination and self-flagellation. These are all normal feelings to have, all normal antidotes to try. We think that with the correct habits, the proper administration of alcohol, glossy entertainment, and distracting games, we might have found the solution as we return again to the wells of our choice. We think we might have found a way to satisfy our thirst.

But, I think that just like the Samaritan woman, we have to acknowledge that the true nature of our thirst is hidden until Jesus comes to meet us at our well, at the place we repeatedly go to satisfy ourselves. Jesus asks us for a drink there, and we engage him in conversation. He points out that there is something higher and better than the small, shallow well to which we keep returning. And in that conversation, our eyes are opened to that deeper thirst.

I think we’ve all had experiences that resonate with this. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I work at the church, and it is not uncommon for me to pilfer a couple of cookies in the afternoon. That leaves me feeling great. I’m not hungry; I could go for hours, I think. That is, until I walk into Nell’s office for our small group and smell the cooking food: pasta or Indian food or chicken. Assaulted by the smell of real food, my stomach rumbles, my skin flushes, and my knees go weak. My body had been hungry all along. The cookies were a thin veil placed over my body’s need for real nutrition. When confronted with the real thing, the cookies seem like a mirage. They were attractive but ultimately did not satisfy.

And when Jesus comes to meet us, he uncovers that deep thirst under our perceived needs, that deep hunger in us, just like he did for the Samaritan woman. He uncovers a thirst we did not know, a deep, hidden thirst for God.

[Page 3] "Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’" (John 4:13-14).

In our readings today, there were two instances of being thirsty and being led to living water. First, in Exodus, the children of Israel, thirsting in the desert, come to Moses and ask him to give them water. "Give us water to drink," they say (Ex 17:2). In response, Moses appeals to the LORD. The LORD sends Moses to a rock at Horeb and says, "I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink" (Exodus 17:6). When pierced with Moses’ holy staff, the rock gives living, running water in the desert and satisfies Israel’s thirst.

Second, with the Samaritan woman, Jesus repeats the pattern. "Give me a drink," he says to the woman. When she appeals to the Lord about how to get this water, he tells her that he, the Messiah, will give Living Water in the desert to whoever asks. This water, unlike the flowing water that came from Moses’ rock, unlike the water that could be drawn from Jacob’s well, this water will be the water of eternal life. Not only will it satisfy the thirst of the woman, it will cause a deeper well than Jacob’s to spring up within her. Jesus himself will satisfy her thirst.

Both these patterns of thirsting and living water are taken up later in John’s Gospel. We find it in John 19 where Jesus is dying on the cross. When he realizes that his journey is now complete, he says out loud, to fulfill the Scripture, "I am thirsty." It is noonday, just like it was at the Samaritan well, but there is no one to engage him in conversation, no opportunity to say the words "Living Water" or "Eternal Life." Instead, knowing that all has been accomplished, he bows his head, says "It is finished," and gives up his spirit.

The leaders didn’t want to leave the bodies up on the crosses, so they sent the Roman soldiers to break the legs of the crucified ones. When they found Jesus already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, the Scripture says, one of the soldiers took his holy spear and pierced Jesus, God’s Holy Rock, in the side, and at once blood and living water poured out. Having taken on our thirst, having taken on our death, the living water that will well up in us to eternal life is poured out from his side. Jesus’ own life is the Living Water, and he has come to satisfy our thirst.

[Page 4] There are many images of water in the Bible. Noah and his family survive it in the ark. The people of Israel cross out of slavery and into the Promised Land through it. And all the images of water in the Bible coalesce around the central act of Christian Baptism, a mystery that we celebrated a few weeks ago for little Jasiah. Baptism doesn’t save us. God saves us, as Chris preached last week, through water and the Spirit. Whether faith comes first or faith comes later, it remains the case that those who find Christ’s living water welling up within them are either those who have been baptized or those who are being driven inexorably by Christ’s Spirit towards baptism. Coming under the water is the outward sign of the inward and spiritual reality of God’s saving grace. Baptism either completes what faith starts or starts what faith completes. Either way, it is the direction we move if we want to know this living water, quenching our thirst, welling up within us to eternal life.

This means a few things for us. First, if we drink from the Living Water, if we find ourselves washed in it, we will find our deepest thirst quenched. If we come to the water of life, we will suddenly be free from the need to seek out other ways to satisfy our deepest longings. We will no longer have to find cheap entertainment or petty diversions or harmful habits to distract us. We will have welling up within us the source of eternal life and from that source we will draw for the rest of this life and for the life to come.

Second, this baptismal life means something else as well: we are commissioned and sent to be labourers in the harvest. Jesus says, "But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour'" (John 4:35-38). The Samaritan woman ran into the city and told everyone what Jesus had done for her. We are commissioned to do the same.

So, I challenge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of Jesus Christ, to examine yourselves in this Holy Lent. If there are any among you who find yourselves drawn to Christ, be baptized. Be cleansed by the water that flows from Jesus’ side and take your place as God’s adopted son or daughter. If you are already baptized and yet find all this talk of living water new and strange, consider a renewal of your baptismal vows and enter again into the life of grace. If you know the living water and find it welling up within you, get confirmed; let the Bishop put his hands on you to commission you to the life of love and service.

If you find this morning God is moving you towards baptism, renewal, or confirmation, please let us know in some way. You can come talk to me or Fr. Ajit; you can reach out to a friend; or you can indicate your interest on the ‘Welcome to St. Matthew’s’ cards in the pews in front of you. Fill them out and drop them in the offering plate when it comes by.

But, whatever the case, don’t hold back. Jesus Christ himself, the Living Water, poured himself out for us, for you. He loves you and wants to lead you into newness of life. He wants to feed you with his own bread and wine. Come to the river of Living Water that ever flows from him.

In name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Collared Evangelism

2011-03-28T07:05:00.001-05:00

from Clergy Shirt USA

I think every clergyperson who owns a collar should give 'collared evangelism' a shot. Here's my story.

The church I work at is small. We average about 50 people on a Sunday. We also have no parking. We could probably squeeze twelve cars into our lot if we tried really hard, and there's no room for expansion in our historic neighborhood.

That means we're stuck. If the church is going to thrive, then we have to become a parish church again; that is, we need to have the majority of our congregants walking to church. The problem? We live in a largely dechurched and unchurched neighborhood. Very few people will come on their own.

The solution? Some good old-fashioned evangelism. We have to be in our neighborhood inviting people into relationship with us, with our church, and with God.

But, another problem emerges. When was the last time you introduced yourself to a stranger in a local restaurant? I mean not just saying hello but starting a conversation and exchanging names and business cards? It's been a while, hasn't it? Generally, this is hard because people don't trust strangers. Specifically, this is had because I'm more introverted than extroverted. Because of generalized distrust and my own uneasiness, it's just hard to talk to strangers.

Over the last several months, "collared evangelism" has developed in my imagination. The church where I work rents space to a daycare. There are children and parents about, and I need some way to be marked out as 'belonging' in the church, so I always wear my collar. I noticed that as I wore my collar on public transit to and from the church that strange things started to happen. People approached me. Lots of people started stopping me to get directions. One woman told me about the break-up of her first marriage. The collar did make some people uncomfortable, but it attracted others, not all of whom had church backgrounds.

For some reason or another, in 21st century Toronto, the collar makes me a safe person to talk to. The collar is a uniform. It marks me off as a 'public' person.

So, I'm scared of strangers and those strangers are scared of being talked to by strangers. But, I have to overcome those fears for the sake of the Gospel in our parish's neighborhood. A simple solution presented itself to me: Be a public person. Wear a uniform. In my case, wear a collar.

A plan for collared evangelism developed. I already have a business card with the church's information and service times on it. I decided I would go into neighborhood businesses like coffee houses and restaurants and take advantage of three moments: when I walked in, when someone joined me in line, and when someone sat next to me.

When I walk in, I smile and greet the people behind the counter (if they aren't swamped). Several of the staff at the local coffeehouse already know me by name.

When someone joins me in line or sits down next to me, I say something introductory about the weather or their laptop or whatever. Then I say, "Hi, I'm Jason. I'm a priest at St. Matthew's on First Avenue just up the way." They usually introduce themselves, and we enjoy a few minutes of small talk. When the conversation starts to die (sometimes it takes 30 minutes!), I say, "I'm in the habit of giving out my card. Would you like one?" Everyone has said yes.

I made it into a game and started keeping track of the number of cards I give out. I'm up to 14, and I've invited 2 of those people to church. That's 14 cards in only 5 visits to local establishments.

Now, most priests I know who are older than me hate wearing their collars in public. They either think it's a holdover from established-church days or that it's just plain pretentious. They assume that the culture around them is holding a list of grievances that they are waiting to take out on clergy. Or, they think that they have to hide the church for a while until they can get people into a relationship with Jesus. Then, and only then, will the church make sense.

But, there's another priest in the Diocese of Toronto who through a mutual friend heard about my experiment. He is new to his cure and has been trying to get to know people around his neighborhood. But, as he would start conversations with people in restaurants or other local places, he would run into the strangers-are-scared-of-strangers phenomena. People wouldn't engage him.

Then, he started wearing his collar . . . and everything changed. In a matter of weeks, he had two complete strangers start attending his mid-week Bible study.

Crazy and kinda counter-intuitive, eh?

So, those of you clergy who have collars and feel the call to do some evangelism in your neighborhood, I invite you to join me in this 'collared evangelism' experiment. I'll be collecting stories and anecdotes in the new Collared Evangelism Facebook group. Please come join us and share your stories, both good and bad!

New Video for Change Anything

2011-03-23T15:21:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I posted an early review of Change Anything by the VitalSmarts team. Here's a new video that really brings the appeal of the book home.

Clergy as Superheroes? Questions about Ontological Change

2011-03-21T08:00:00.004-05:00

photo by Elvis Santana

It's been said that when someone is ordained, they receive an indelible character; that is, their soul is somehow changed to allow or enable the execution of their ministry. In other words, it is said, ordination effects an ontological change in the person receiving ordination. There is what they were, and now their very being has been changed.

Right off the bat, I find this idea a little dodgy. Are we really saying that ordinands are superheroes? Is it like the Roman Catholic billboard that puts the white silhouette of the clerical collar against a black background with the words, "Yes, you do get to fight evil. No you don't get to wear a cape"? While George Sumner's book Being Salt has helped me understand better how we might mean indelible character when translated into an evangelical key, I'm still uncomfortable with the idea.

But there is a problem: anecdotal evidence mounts.

When I was ordained a deacon, something happened. It was like something settled on me and stuck there. I felt it. I felt it that day and felt a resulting confidence in my ministry. The call was settled and received; I felt a new freedom to be a minister of the Gospel.

But then, when I was ordained a priest, something else odd happened. I work at St. Matthew's Riverdale in Toronto, which shares its facilities with a daycare. The children paid me no mind the six months I worked there before. But, the first time I saw them after being ordained, several of them stopped what they were doing and ran to me. There was an awe, a wonder, on their faces. Needless to say, it was an unnerving encounter!

And I'm not the only one to have these types of experiences. They are whispered about and wondered over everywhere I talk to clergy.

What does it mean? How could we explain it theologically? I'm not sure, and I think we might have gotten ourselves into trouble by trying too hard to do so. I'm no superhero, but I know that I am now different than I was. I am coming to believe that my fathers and mothers in faith wrestled with the same experience in their own ordinations. I might not like their formulations, but I am grateful that they tried to bring their experience to speech. Even though I might use different words, I don't think I could bring these experiences to expression without their help. Thanks be to God for the wisdom of the ages.

Are you a clergyperson? What was/is your experience?

Post-Liberal Catholic Anglicanism?

2011-03-14T08:00:00.003-05:00

It's been said that Anglicanism has three major parties: the Evangelical, the Anglo-Catholic, and the Liberal. There have been overlaps among these parties. It is not uncommon to find an Anglican seminary devoted to liberal Catholicism, and it is becoming increasingly common at Evangelical seminaries to have Anglican ordinands genuflecting, crossing themselves, thinking more and more highly of the ever-Blessed Virgin Mary, and longing for the baptismal font to be filled with Holy Water.

Given our theological training, I think it would be wrong to call us "Evangelical Catholics," even though we are "evangelical" in the classical sense of the word: we're Protestants. But, we resemble in our worship, practice, and ethos Liberal Catholicism more than we do American Evangelicalism. Our Yale-school teachers are sometimes called "Post-liberals." Does that make us Post-Liberal Catholics? If so, what are the contours of Post-Liberal Catholicism? How does it interact with the Reformation? Who are its guiding lights? Where might it take us in the future?

The label of Post-Liberal Catholic just seems to fit me and others I know. Where do you fall?

Our Churches as Self-Obsessed Teenagers

2011-03-07T08:00:00.008-06:00

My wife Dr. Monique and I recently had a conversation. The topic: the North American church. Monique's earth-shaking observation: Our churches act like self-obsessed teenagers.

Think about it, she said. Self-obsessed teenagers, shoulders slouched, spend all of their time worrying about what others think of them. Every little thing builds into the story they tell. "So and so doesn't like me." "She said that little thing about enzymes in science class just to make fun of me." You remember that time in your life.

Change Anything

2011-03-04T08:00:00.005-06:00

I just finished reading an advance copy of Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by the team at VitalSmarts. They're the ones who brought us Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer, all books I've become convinced are must-reads for clergy. Crucial Confrontations stands out because it teaches skills for 'speaking the truth in love' to those who violate agreed upon expectations - something very important for those of us who lead volunteer-based organizations. Crucial Conversations teaches 'tools for talking when stakes are high,' a relevant skill. Influencer delves into the six sources of influence, an idea that Change Anything applies to personal success.

Change Anything argues that we all fall into the 'willpower trap' which convinces us that if we fail to make a change, then it is all the fault of our faulty wills. No, Patterson, et. al., argue, there are at least six sources of influence that condition our behavior, only one of which is our own personal motivation. If we only have one of the six on our side, then we're outnumbered and should not expect to see positive change happen. If, however, we can demystify the six sources and develop change plans that address them, then we will be much more likely to achieve the change we want.

The six sources comprise of three sources of motivation (personal, social, structural) and three sources of ability (personal, social, structural). Our "wills" are personal motivation. But, they're only one of the six. If we really want to change something, we have to engage the other five. Not too long ago, I decided that I needed to cut back on coffee consumption. One simple change completely removed my will from the equation: I washed and stored my automatic coffee maker. Suddenly, it was easy to consume a reasonable amount of coffee per day. That's an example of the structural ability source of influence at work. Without easy access to large amounts of coffee, my intake dropped without having to fight temptation one bit. Amazing!

Change Anything, due out April 11, 2011, is important for pastors because it gives us a vocabulary to help people change, which is the point of our work. We are called to be stewards of ours and others' sanctification. This little resource goes a long way towards helping us see the insidious ways that the world uses to keep us in its grasp. It also gives us resources to rapidly and effectively change our own behaviors. Whether we need to do more evangelism or keep better track of the church's books, Change Anything will be a good place to start to develop a change plan to make us more effective ministers of the Gospel of Christ. I recommend it, and the other books from VitalSmarts, with no reservations.

I'd love to have a conversation about the theological implications of a book like this - if you're interested, join me in the comments.

SERMON: God Loves His Enemies

2011-02-23T14:58:00.001-06:00

Date: February 20, 2011

Sermon Text: Matthew 5:38-48

[Introduction] When I was growing up, Gary Larson created the comic strip The Far Side. In the strip, God was a recurring character. Larson often depicted God as a big man with blue-tinted skin, a white unibrow, and bushy white beard. One of Larson’s particularly popular depictions of God is called “God at his computer.” In the picture, God is sitting at his desk, idly watching his computer screen. On the screen, a man is walking obliviously down the side-walk. I say “obliviously” because there is a falling piano inches above his head! But, God looks on undisturbed, his finger hovering over a big white button on his keyboard marked, simply, “Smite.”

God sitting at his computer, bored, waiting for someone to slip up so he can hit the smite button – that’s a way a lot of people think about God. Some theologians have said that everything we say about God is just us casting our own images against the sky and calling that self-reflection “God.” In this case, I think they’re right. God, bored at his computer, smiting people as a form of amusement – that probably says more about us than it does about God. Our Gospel passage today illumines just that

[Page 1] Jesus sits atop a mountain in Galilee teaching his disciples, having just escaped the crowd. He had been among the people healing, teaching in synagogues, and driving out demons. But in our passage, he has withdrawn, coming up out of the crowd, and the disciples gather around him. He teaches what later will be called the Sermon on the Mount. The disciples are the primary audience. The crowd gathers below

As the disciples sit and the crowd strains to hear, Jesus repeats the Scripture to them: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.” Again, later, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy’.” That last bit about hating the enemy wasn’t in the Jewish Scriptures, but it was apparently something the disciples and the crowd had already heard. Jesus and his audience live in a world where it is natural, even expected, to hate your enemy

And Jesus’ audience has many enemies. The crowd shifts uncomfortably as a group of Roman soldiers passes nearby. It’s better to keep your eyes down than earn the wrath of those non-Jews, the “Gentiles,” who oppress them and laugh in derision at Israel’s faith in the one, true God. Perhaps worse than the soldiers at the edge of the crowd are the Jewish people who aren’t there, their own people who sell themselves out to the Romans as tax collectors. The collectors are seen as the worst of the worst, preying on their own for the benefit of the enemy. It is no wonder that both before and after Jesus’ ministry, great numbers of Jewish people rose up in revolt against Rome and felt justified doing so. Their very way of life was under attack. Hating your enemy – returning an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, striking when struck, protecting one’s assets from those who would steal them by hook or by crook – this was the only way to survive. In other words, protect yourself; look out for what’s yours; and hate the one who wants to take it from you. For Jesus’ disciples and the crowd below, this is the way the world works. Watch out for yourself; hate your enemy. Enemy-hatred is the name of the game.

[Page 2] In the 21^st century, in an age of democratic government and religious tolerance, it is easy to think that this human dynamic has changed. If we acknowledge having enemies, they are often far away, speakers of other languages, followers of violent forms of religion. But, we too are like the people in Jesus’ day. We too have enemies that make us want to watch out only for ourselves and lash out against any threat, like a snake coiled tightly around its eggs.

We keep enemies in our personal relationships. We refuse to deal with conflicts as they arise, and the inconvenience quickly turns to annoyance which festers into disgust and bleeds hate. We make foes of those who should be our friends. We tell nasty stories about them to ourselves and to anyone who will listen. Or, we bottle the stories up and let them ferment until we cannot hold them any longer, and we explode.

It’s been said that the average inmate serving time in American prisons for crimes like theft, drugs, etc. has six convictions. Most are not there because they were hungry and stole something to survive. Most are the product of brutal streets full of the enemy-hatred that we think of when we first think of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But, whereas the average inmate has six convictions, there is a special class of inmate that on average has only one. They are the murderers. Most often, they commit crimes of passion driven by anger, oftentimes anger that has festered against a loved one for years. It festers until one day they snap, and they kill. This statistic alone shows Jesus to be very wise: he said in our reading last week that to hate your neighbour was to commit murder. They are not so far apart after all.

But it also goes to show that even in today’s world, we all harbor enemies, even though we often call them friends. We nurse our hatreds with our neighbours and let them grow. Enemy-hatred, even if we do a good job masking it, is still the name of the game, and because of that it is no wonder that Larson’s cartoon of God at his computer resonates so deeply with us. We all know a few people we would like to drop pianos on. If God were like us, then God would be just like Larson depicted.

[Page 3] But, thanks be to God, God is not like us at all. On the mount, Jesus says to his disciples and the listening crowd, “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Why does Jesus want his disciples to love and pray for their enemies? Jesus continues: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” What does loving enemies have to do with being God’s children? Jesus explains: “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” In other words, quite unlike the God Larson depicts, and quite unlike the enemy-hating world in which the disciples live, God loves his enemies, and he shows his love by making the sun rise on everyone, the good and the bad, and by sending the rain on the good and the bad alike. Jesus concludes by saying, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Human perfection, Jesus seems to be saying, is nothing other than loving your enemy because God loves his enemies.

In the Gospel of Matthew, this is the first time the disciples gather around Jesus to receive a special teaching. What they won’t realize until much later is that everything that Jesus demands of them in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount is what he himself is doing. Jesus is the one who turns the other cheek when on trial before the Sanhedrin. Jesus is the one gets sued for his coat and gives his cloak as well to be divided among the Roman guards. Jesus is the one who walks the second mile with his cross to the mount of Golgotha. Jesus is the one who gives of himself until the very end of his being, to whoever asks. Jesus is setting the stage here so that his disciples can later realize that God is loving his enemies through what Jesus does in his life. St. Paul will later exclaim, “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Ro. 5:10). Jesus’ earthly life is itself the supreme act of God’s enemy-love, a love which will change everything.

[Page 4] Unlike the disciples in our passage, we have the advantage of hindsight. We can see that God’s love for his enemies culminated in Jesus’ death and resurrection. We can see that the Church has been the place where people gather to learn how to replace their enemy-hatred with love. We can see that through this enemy-love, the powers of this world have been brought low as the Church imitates Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

What does it mean to love our enemies? In the first place, it means that we have to acknowledge that we have enemies, not just enemies far away, but enemies in our homes, our workplaces, even here at St. Matthew’s. We all have enemies, people who have it out for us, or people we have it out for. Loving our enemies first means acknowledging that we have them.

Second, Jesus says to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” After acknowledging that you have enemies in your life, the next thing to do is pray for them. We might in moments of anger pray that God drop a piano on their heads, and really it’s okay to pray that from time to time. But, if we want to follow Jesus, we have to find ways beyond that vengeance-dream to actually praying for our enemies’ good. This is hard for us, perhaps impossible on our own. But remember that Jesus himself took God’s love for his enemies to its furthest extent – to the point of death. Because Jesus prayed for his enemies with his whole life and prays for his enemies now at the Father’s right hand, we have hope and power. We can pray for our enemies now, too.

Third, from a place of prayer for our enemies, we can learn to uncoil a bit, to relax, to actually be human with the people we are struggling not to hate. From this place of freedom in the enemy-loving God, we are free to turn the other cheek, to give extravagantly, to walk the second mile, to start the journey of perfection that will end with the world restored in the glory of God.

I was told this week that like the Riverdale neighborhood St. Matthew’s has a fighting spirit. We don’t give up when things get tough. We redouble our efforts. What Jesus makes clear today is that we are called to identify and fight our enemies not with violence but with prayer and reconciling service. This is a hard and high calling. Let us embrace it, not giving up but redoubling our efforts to turn our nearby enemies into reconciled neighbours. For God so loved the world that while we were still his enemies, he sent Christ to save us. In response to God’s amazing grace, as our worship continues let us pray for our enemies, come forward to receive God’s reconciling love with our hands, our mouths, and our hearts, and go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord among our neighbours yes, but also, and especially, among our enemies.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Synod for Communion Partner–ACNA Reconciliation

2011-02-09T13:36:00.000-06:00

On the Covenant blog, Phillip Anderas has posted a sermon entitled "And None But Thee." Intriguingly, the sermon has this enigmatic explanatory note attached: "A Sermon to Be Preached at the Synod for Communion Partner–ACNA Reconciliation."

I am from a Communion Partner diocese. My home parish went through an AMiA split a couple of years before I started attending there. I have dear friends who attend that now-ACNA parish and are entering discernment for Holy Orders. The division among orthodox Anglicans has been a sticking point between us. To say the least it is painful.

Anderas' sermon is about repentance and reconciliation. A paragraph near the conclusion reads:

It may be that the splinters of this broken bridge will sink deeply into the holy water of baptism, and we Anglicans will find that God in his mercy has killed us only to make us alive. If he first devours us, the great Lion of the tribe Judah may not, after all, spit us out of his mouth. There is a sharp, double-edged sword that comes out from that mouth, a living and active Word; and the Lord will use it to strike down the nations. If he slays us now, he will bring us to life. If he brings us down to Sheol, he will raise us up from the dead. If he makes us poor, he will enrich us. If he brings us low, he will exalt us. He will raise up the poor from the dust and the needy from the ash heap and make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.

Needless to say, I was intrigued by this thought. Was there really a Synod meeting somewhere in secret, perhaps a convocation of Communion Partner and ACNA bishops, committing themselves to find common cause again in the Gospel? When would the results of such a convocation be announced? What might that mean for me and my ecclesially-separated friends?

But, after Google searches and emails to knowledgeable colleagues, I found that, to the best of our knowledge, no convocation exists or is planned to exist. What a desperately sad realization after that initial burst of hoping for Spirit-wrought and institutionally meaningful reconciliation between our churches.

But, then again, there was that burst of hope. And that makes me wonder: is there something here? If Covenant created an imaginary synod that exploded to life in my mind, did it awaken forgotten hope in others as well? Might there be a place for such a gathering, such a convocation, such a holy assembly?

I pray there is, by God's grace.

SERMON: Christ the King

2010-11-22T13:52:00.001-06:00

The Three Crosses
by Pieter Pauwel Rubens (1620)

Date: November 21, 2010
Sermon Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

[Introduction] Today we celebrate the final Sunday of the liturgical year: Christ the King Sunday. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. A week from today, Christians will be able to say to one another, “Happy New Year!” and mean it. We Christians have our own calendar and celebrate our own feasts as a way of expressing the world’s deepest truth: Christ really is the King. He is king not only of our lives but of the whole world.

[Page 1] Turning to our readings today, we can see that this idea that Jesus is king is not what the world thought. Our passage from Luke’s Gospel begins with the clang, clang, clang of stakes being driven into wooden beams. The text says, “When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left” (Lk 23:33). As Jesus hangs naked on the cross with a crown of thorns on his head, those who crucified him stand around. They are the leaders of Jesus’ world. On the one side, there are the religious leaders of his nation. They, the shepherds of God’s people, scoff at Jesus: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” On the other side, there are the Roman soldiers. They, too, mock the bleeding Jesus: “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Even one of the criminals hanging beside Jesus derides the broken man: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” And, even though the sign above Jesus’ head reads “This is the King of the Jews,” there is no doubt in the gathered crowds’ minds that he is no such thing. The whole world is gathered around Jesus on the cross. From the lowest criminal to the highest religious and political authorities in Jesus’ world, the whole world rejects Jesus as king.

Read more »

George Bailey is Trapped

2010-11-13T20:57:00.002-06:00

On Wednesday nights, I host a movie discussion group at Grace Church-on-the-Hill. The current five-week series focuses on the question, "What is the meaning of life?" We're watching five films that touch on the topic.

Last night, we watched It's a Wonderful Life. More than a decade has passed since I last saw the film. As I prepared for the night and discussed the movie with the group, I realized that Life is a very adult movie. The week prior, we had watched The Truman Show. There are some striking parallels between the movies, but in comparison Truman is a teenage movie. Here's why.

George Bailey is trapped.

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SERMON: God, Faith, Service

2010-10-17T17:46:00.003-05:00

A mulberry tree

Date: October 3, 2010

Sermon Text: Luke 17:5-10

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

[Introduction] Our Gospel lesson this morning is about faith and miracles. When I think about faith and miracles, my mind always jumps immediately to the so-called “faith healers” that can be seen on Sunday morning television. One famous faith healer, whose name we’ll change to “Rev. James,” proclaims that God has given him the gift of healing, and when he prays for someone, they often fall over unconscious, overwhelmed by the experience. They are “slain in the Spirit.” I don’t doubt the sincerity of these actions. I myself have experienced, in instances of intense personal and corporate prayer, extreme vertigo. But the whole scenario certainly raises some questions about faith for me.

And the questions are only exacerbated when a seminary friend of mine, who knows of my deep and abiding love of Star Wars, sends me doctored YouTube videos. This video he sent me took clips of Rev. James slaying people in the Spirit and combined it with the moving battle music from the Star Wars films. And, to top it off, the clever video editors put a glowing red lightsaber in Rev. James’ hands. In each of the original clips, Rev. James swings his arms at the people to slay them in the Spirit, but in the edited version, he’s knocking individuals and groups over with one swing of his lightsaber. “Rev. James,” the video proclaims, “Dark Lord of the Sith.”

Sermon: The Cup of Discipleship

2010-09-20T15:31:00.001-05:00

Date: September 5, 2010

Sermon Text: Luke 14:25-33

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

[Introduction] The liturgy of our church is a scary thing. For some of us who have come to Anglicanism later in life, it is scary because it is new. The words sound funny on our tongues. We’re not sure where to pause during the Nicene Creed. We often speak out of turn. For those of you who grew up with the liturgy, it might be scary because it is so familiar. It could be that whole worship services go by without the words penetrating the haze of the busy-ness of our weeks. But for both old and new, the liturgy is a frightful thing for a quite different reason. Every week, the liturgy tricks us. It tricks us into saying words that commit us once again to the life of discipleship. It prompts us to reaffirm our baptismal vows. It calls us out of ourselves into a new kind of life. But it does all this without often asking us to count the cost.

Tim Jones+: A Chink in the Curtains

2010-08-21T20:07:00.001-05:00

My friend Tim Jones+ recently posted this at his blog, Life-Changing Prayer and has given permission for its reposting here. Where do you find the chinks?

A CHINK IN THE CURTAINS

I was reading along, not expecting to find a startling spiritual image in a twentieth-century novel by a writer not exactly known for his praying.

But W. Somerset Maugham’s character, Larry, the aimless and likeable protagonist in The Razor’s Edge, is recounting the chats he had with a hulking uncouth Polish miner. It turns out that Kosti (a simplified Polish name for the unlikely spiritual guide) had a secret love of spiritual writers (indeed, the man only had the courage to reveal his hidden longings when drunk). He ends up being a kind of spiritual mentor to Larry.

“It was all new to me and I was confused and excited,” Larry told a friend of his conversations with Kosti. And what Larry said next was what struck me: “I was like someone who’s lain awake in a darkened room and suddenly a chink of light shoots through the curtains and he knows he only has to draw them and there the country will be spread before him in a glory of the dawn.”

I wonder what that image meant to Maugham, the author. Certainly something, sometime had felt to him like at least a glimmer or a glimpse: “A chink of light shoots through the curtains.”

And to know that to draw the curtains means seeing a “country … spread out before [us] in a glory of the dawn!” I wonder what intimations he had of the spiritual possibilities.

I know that I can go along, not expecting much, not staying much on the lookout, but then I come awake, maybe for just an instant or so, to a world just out of view, one with a spreading glory, just beyond the curtains of everyday occupations.

No wonder Paul spoke in Ephesians 3:18-19 of how he hoped those hearing him would “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”

That glory seems to appear to us sometimes through a chink or in a corner or crevice. But sometimes I have the wherewithal to wonder what more lies beyond the glimmer. I might even go looking.

Sermon on the Feast Day of St. Mary the Virgin

2010-08-18T18:50:00.000-05:00

Date: August 15, 2010
Sermon Texts: Isaiah 7:10-15; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 1:46-55

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in you sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

Someone asked me this week what success looked like. We had a good, long conversation about it. For as long and good as it was, it was still far too short. I confess that I brought the question into my office with me as I started preparing this sermon. What does success look like? What does it mean to be successful? There are, of course, a lot of different answers to that question, all of which depend on a person’s situation and perspective. But, in today’s readings, as we celebrate and remember St. Mary the Virgin, I think we have the beginnings of a Christian answer to the question.

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Sermon: Jesus Makes Space at His Feet

2010-08-18T18:44:00.000-05:00

Date: July 18, 2010
Sermon Text: Luke 10:38-42

Last week, the Gospel passage ended with Jesus’ command, “Go and do likewise.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan, I said that the lawyer (and we) should see ourselves, in the first instance, as the man beaten and left in the ditch to die, and I encouraged us to hold our hand open to let God rescue us. I should say, now, that only the first foot dropped last week. In the first instance, we are to recognize that we are in need of God’s rescue. The second foot is what Jesus says at the end of the parable: “Go and do likewise.” Go and rescue others from their ditches. Go bring people back to Jesus and His Church.

Our Gospel passage today falls right on the heels of Jesus’ “Go and do likewise.” St. Luke tells the story of someone who heard the “Go and do” and took it too seriously and too far. This is Martha.

Read more »

Sermon: The Good Samaritan

2010-08-18T18:18:00.006-05:00

This is the first sermon I preached at my new parish home, St. Matthew's Riverdale.

Date: July 11, 2010
Sermon Text: Luke 10:25-37

It wasn’t too long ago, when I was in high school. And I was in love. There was a girl in my church’s youth group who seemed to me, at the time, to be everything I could have ever wanted.

I remember trying to get this girl just to like me back. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing seemed to work. I talked to people. I even read a best-selling Christian book on high school dating. After months of frustration, sitting at the kitchen table, I finally blurted out to my mother: “I don’t understand. What I have done wrong? I’ve done everything right. And it’s not working out!” My mother did what good mother’s do and gave me a hug. But, the unspoken question lay there on the table: “Really, what do I have to do to make her love me?

Contra Factum - out of retirement

2010-08-18T18:13:00.002-05:00

It's been long, too long, since I've posted here at Contra Factum. I intend to rectify that as I clean up the remnants of old blogs around the web. Soon, this will be the one-stop shop for all things Jason, including sermons, photos, news stories, etc.

What’s Wrong with Theology: A Short Case Study

2009-06-20T22:04:00.003-05:00

Over at Mode of Expression, Jeff Reimer recently posted What’s Wrong with Theology: A Short Case Study in which he describes his interaction with a recent edition of Augustine's sermons. It's worth the read.

An excerpt:

One of the maddening things about my “Christian spirituality” classes in grad school was the constant separation students fretted over between “head” and “heart.” This may have been a legitimate problem, but the way they articulated it made it sound like the problem was somehow too much theology. Wrong! A bifurcation of “head” and “heart” is the result of faulty theology, not too much. Something we could learn by reading more Augustine.

New Review Up

2009-06-19T11:07:00.000-05:00

Over at the Princeton Seminary Library page, a new book review from yours truly is up: Joe Mangina's Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness. Enjoy!

Sermon: Jesus Sends Doubters

2009-06-16T09:40:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, I was in New Jersey and preached at Montgomery Evangelical Free Church, the church where Monique and I attended and I worked during seminary. It has been my tradition to post the full text of my sermons along with the audio when it is available.

The audio may be found here.

Full text below:

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"Jesus Sends Doubters"

Matthew 28:16-20

[Open with prayer]

Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28. Let’s start in verse 16: “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.” We need to back up and get some context. Earlier in Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to Jesus’ tomb. There they witnessed a violent earthquake, the descent of an angel, the fainting of the guards, and as they were going away from the tomb, they ran into Jesus himself. They took his instruction to the disciples: “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” And quickly they departed. At the beginning of the passage today the eleven remaining disciples are climbing the mountain to find Jesus.

Did some of the disciples’ faces radiate joy? Did others radiate hope? Did others mix the two, like the women in verse eight, who were “afraid yet filled with joy?” As the eleven climbed the mountain, each one knew that something was going to happen, even if that something was nothing at all.

Per Caritatem: Paul and Slavery

2009-02-28T10:19:00.003-06:00

The Per Caritatem blog has just started a series called "Paul and Slavery: Submit, Subvert, or Something in Between?" The first post is very engaging, and I'm looking forward to the rest. I hope you'll check it out.

Auctioning Virginity

2008-09-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

This is from IvyJungle.org:

Graduate Student Auctions Off Virginity: In a new low for morals and capitalism, a 22 year old graduate student at Sacramento State has joined with a legal Nevada brothel to auction off her virginity. The young woman says she can verify her purity and is selling her first experience to finance her graduate education in marriage and family therapy. Holding an undergraduate degree in women's studies she believes her actions are empowering to her as a woman and that her virginity is marketable because it is a rare commodity. Several students have expressed support, especially for a cause as noble as paying for school. (CBS13.com September 11, 2008)

Getting mentioned...

2008-08-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

Because of the recent work I've been doing with Matt Jenson's The Gravity of Sin, I've gotten some exposure at the T&T Clark blog here and here. Enjoy!

N. T. Wright on the Ascension

2008-08-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've been reading N. T. Wright's Surprised by Hope. Here are a couple of fantastic paragraphs on the ascension (112-113).

What happens when you downplay or ignore the ascension [or the resurrected and still embodied Jesus]? The answer is that the church expands to fill the vaccuum. If Jesus is more or less identical with the church - if, that is, talk about Jesus can be reduced to talk about his presence within his people rather than his standing over against them and addressing them from elsewhere as their Lord, then we have created a high road to the worst kind of triumphalism. This indeed is what twentieth-century English liberalism always tended toward: by compromising with rationalism and trying to maintain that talk of the ascension is really talk about Jesus being with us everywhere, the church effectively presented itself (with its structures and hierarchy, its customs and quirks) instead of presenting Jesus as its Lord and itself as the world's servant, as Paul puts it. And the other side of triumphalism is of course despair. If you put all your eggs into the church-equals-Jesus basket, what are you left with when, as Paul says in the same passage, we ourselves are found to be cracked earthenware vessels?

If the church identifies its structures, its leadership, its liturgy, its buildings, or anything else with its Lord - and that's what happens if you ignore the ascension or turn it into another way of talking about the Spirit - what do you get? You get, on the one hand, what Shakespeare called "the insolence of office" and, on the other hand, the despair of late middle age, as people realize it doesn't work. (I see this all too frequently among those who bought heavily into the soggy rationalism of the 1950s and 1960s.) Only when we grasp firmly that the church is not Jesus and Jesus is not the church - when we grasp, in other words, the truth of the ascension, that the one who is indeed present with us by the Spirit is also the Lord who is strangely absent, strangely other, strangely different from us and over against us, the one who tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him - only then are we rescued from both hollow triumphalism and shallow despair.

There is more fantastic material in the following paragraphs, but this little tidbit hit me on Saturday when I was reading it. Wright goes on to make the interesting (and necessary point) that a human being (Jesus as the divine-human person) is running the cosmos right now from heaven - that Jesus continues his human work straight into the present. You hear these things so little - how wonderful to hear them again!

"At the Name of Jesus"

2008-08-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is a lyric of a song we sing at St. Bartholomew's from time to time. The words were penned by Caroline Maria Noel in 1870, and the hymn tune we use was arranged by our music director Eric Wyse in 2005. In my humble opinion, there's not a more perfect expression of theology and piety than this song. The two verses in brackets are original, but we don't use in church, for length's sake, but they are beautiful nonetheless.

At the Name of Jesus
At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess Him King of glory now;
’Tis the Father’s pleasure we should call Him Lord,
Who from the beginning was the mighty Word.

[Mighty and mysterious in the highest height,
God from everlasting, very light of light:
In the Father’s bosom with the spirit blest,
Love, in love eternal, rest, in perfect rest.

At His voice creation sprang at once to sight,
All the angel faces, all the hosts of light,
Thrones and dominations, stars upon their way,
All the heavenly orders, in their great array.]

Humbled for a season, to receive a name
From the lips of sinners unto whom He came,
Faithfully He bore it, spotless to the last,
Brought it back victorious when from death He passed.

Bore it up triumphant with its human light,
Through all ranks of creatures, to the central height,
To the throne of Godhead, to the Father’s breast;
Filled it with the glory of that perfect rest.

Name Him, Christians, name Him, with love strong as death
But with awe and wonder, and with bated breath!
He is God the Savior, He is Christ the Lord,
Ever to be worshipped, trusted and adored.

In your hearts enthrone Him; there let Him subdue
All that is not holy, all that is not true;
Crown Him as your Captain in temptation’s hour;
Let His will enfold you in its light and power.

Christians, this Lord Jesus shall return again,
With His Father’s glory, with His angel train;
For all wreaths of empire meet upon His brow,
And our hearts confess Him King of glory now.

The same mistake

2008-08-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

In other words, liberalism is, simply, the desire to be taken seriously by the academy and the willingness to find an apologetic that is relevant to the culture.

Several days ago, a friend replied to my 'bad, bad windows' rant. You can see his response here. I replied, and the above sentence is part of the response. The more I think about this sentence, the more I think it is both desperately hard and true.

It is hard because I work for InterVarsity's Graduate and Faculty Ministries. We're about the work of helping Christian grad students make it in the contemporary university and, on top of that, helping them to thrive as Christians and academics, as whole people, as world-changers.

It is hard because our modus operandi is sometimes for some of us driven by wanting to be taken seriously and wanting to find an apologetic that is relevant to the academic culture.

We want to be taken seriously. Who wants to be thought of as a buffoon? Who wants to think other people are thinking one is a supersititous, backwoods idiot?

And so, we want to be relevant. We want to find a bridge between the culture that we want to take us seriously, and the message we want to bring to that culture.

But, unfortunately, the sentence remains devastatingly true - at least of the thumbnail sketch of the development of continental liberalism I was taught. Schleiermacher wrote a book on Christianity to "his cultured despisers." A brilliant thinker, he bridged the gap. He developed a sophisticated, elegant, and convincing apologetic for the Gospel.

But, in so doing, he tamed the Gospel; he broke her back. The Gospel became a maidservant to the ideology to which she had been wedded. She was eventually eviscerated of her vital life and left as a shell into which people cast their images of God against the sky.

He wanted the Gospel to be taken seriously by the culture.

He was willing to fashion an apologetic to make it so.

And us evangelicals are perilously close to the same mistake, which is why I continued in my comment:

Well, those two things sound like most evangelicals, don't they? That's because we're only ever a hair's breadth away from making the same mistake as the continental liberals: wanting more desperately to speak TO our cultured despisers than ABOUT Jesus Christ.

We ministers have to be able to speak about Jesus Christ, even at the expense of looking foolish to our counterparts and colleagues. He is public truth, and his Revelation is knowledge, but if we ever put the cart before the horse, if we ever allow something else to become the subject of the sentence, then we have already capitulated, already lost the fight. One hundred years from now, "public truth" and "knowledge" will not be the terms in which we try to cast our faith, but He will always be its purpose, content, and goal. We are speaking about him to our cultured despisers. And may it always come in that order.

10 Days to Faster Reading

2008-08-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

I finished this little book while we were on vacation, and I'd say this. If you want to read more quickly than you already do, then buy this book. I've tried to read faster before, but there was something about this book was structured (one chapter a day for ten days) that sped the learning, and I highly recommend it.

The most important thing I learned was that you have to expect a drop in comprehension when you start to read faster. BUT, given (what I found to be) just a little bit of practice, comprehension returns. Now, I feel like a more confident reader than I ever have before.

This really helps for someone working with graduate students!

New review up!

2008-08-02T09:30:00.001-05:00

Before we left on our trip, I wrote a review of Matt Jenson's The Gravity of Sin for the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. The review is up now, so go see it and let me know what you think.

Bad, Bad Windows

2008-08-01T22:30:00.001-05:00

As I've written, Monique and I just returned recently from a fantastic 10-day vacation to the Pacific Northwest. On the trip, we visited Victoria, British Columbia, and its beautiful Parliament building.

Represented in stained glass around the place were the different branches of knowledge. One held the Arts, another Science, and yet another Agriculture. Being me, the one that caught my eye was Divinitas, "divinity."

It's a beautiful window, and I took a minute or two to ponder it. I noticed how Divinity is broken into two, Theology and Piety.

Theology had a Star of David and a lamp on a pedestal.

Piety had an open Bible and a cross.

And then the message of the windows hit me. Theology is the transcendence of Jewish religion by the light of reason (the lamp), while piety is the affectation of Christian religion based on Scripture and the cross. Divinity is thus broken into the theoretical (theology) and the practical (piety), the hard and the soft.

The window deserves some applause for holding theology and piety together. Many lectures and sermons have tried to convince me to value one more highly than the other. Some theologians demonize piety for its lack of rigor and clear headedness. Some preachers demonize theology for separating them from the presence of God's love.

And the windows bear out the divide. Only Piety focuses on Christ. The open Bible is there as well as the cross. Affectation, a feeling of dependence, a sense of being forgiven.

But not in the Theology pane. In Theology, there is the Star of David, a representative of ancient Jewish religion. It is impaled on the stand that holds the clear light of reason on top. Theology is not about Jesus or Scripture, the window proclaims. It is the pure knowledge of God that transcends the narrow and backwards superstitions of the ancient Jewish people (and, by extension, the narrow and backwards superstitions of the pious). I can't tell what sickens me more, the overt arrogance or the covert anti-semitism. Or the fact that these ideas dominated the continental liberal theological establishment that supported a Kaiser's war policies and then refused to stand up to a Fuhrer.

Or that many well-meaning, wonderful, and intelligent theologians and preachers still indulge the insipid divide between theology and piety today.

Oh, for a new starting point in theology.

Back from the Northwest

2008-08-01T22:24:00.003-05:00

Monique and I are just back from a celebratory trip to the Pacific Northwest. We celebrated Monique's completed Ph.D. with ten days in Washington, Oregon, and Canada. What a great trip it was!

Here are some of the things we saw:
1. Mt. Rainier
2. Mt. St. Helens
3. The Columbia River Gorge
4. Multnomah Falls
5. Portland
6. Washington's Pacific Coastline
7. Olympic National Park
8. The Hoh Rainforest
9. Cape Flattery (the most NW point of the lower 48)
10. Victoria, the major city on Vancouver Island, British Columbia
11. and Seattle!

The trip was great, and there are so many stories to tell. And, I'll be posting some of them here in the next few days. Actually, one of them is already written and returns to more theological topics. I hope you'll enjoy!

Two recent sermons

2008-07-02T08:13:00.003-05:00

Here is a link to two recent sermons I preached at Montgomery Evangelical Free Church in Belle Mead, NJ.

The first is "Christ Conquered our Suffering," on Romans 5:1-11.

The second is "God Gave Us Life," on Romans 6:1-11.

Enjoy!

Indiana Jones in Twilight

2008-05-28T06:54:00.002-05:00

The very few reviews I have read try to treat Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a stand-alone story and then complain about its lack of wonder, adventure, or originality. These really are problems with Skull, but I do not think they spring from the failure of Lucas and Spielberg to create a fresh action movie. They are, on the other hand, marks of success. Skull was nothing if not appropriate.

Indiana Jones is old. In his first appearance in Skull, Indy stumbles to his tossed-down hat. His gait is strained and his posture stiff. With hands raised, Indy’s companion mutters, “This isn’t going to be easy.” Indy replies, “Not as easy as it used to be.”

Indy lives in a different time and place. No longer the WWII era filled with Nazis and youth, the late ‘50’s are a time of fear. Suited FBI agents tell Indy he is a suspected Communist. The Board of Directors at Yale put him on an indefinite leave of absence. The once-open halls of academia breath the stale, narrow air of paranoia. Teaching always bored the Dr. Jones who wanted to be ‘in the field.’ But this is different somehow. Yale feels like a tomb.

Indy has wasted his life. Bouncing in the back of a Soviet truck through the Amazon, Marian and Indy argue about his lost life. “I’m sure you had plenty of women after you left me,” Marian spits. “Yeah,” Indy retorts, “They all shared one problem, though. They weren’t you, sweetheart.” His years of lying in his relationships’ wreckage have taken a silent toll on Indy which he only realizes when he is told that he has a son, Mutt Williams (played admirably by Shia LeBeouf).

Indy grows. “Do what you love and don’t let anybody tell you different,” Indiana says to Mutt in a wasted Peruvian city. Mutt had dropped out of college. When Indy finds out the truth about his son, he changes: “You’re going back to school!”

“What about ‘do what you love and don’t let anybody tell you different’!?!”

“That was before I was your father!”

What if they make a new movie starring Mutt? I myself am torn. This was Indiana’s twilight, but it would make sense if it were Mutt’s dawning, and the work done in Skull would allow a sequel to be made on the fresh and interesting level of Raiders and Crusade. I like how Skull ended with Mutt nearly, but not quite, donning the hat. I hope for two different things: the first is that they make a movie to explore the development of Henry Jones III. The second is that they never reopen these pages, allowing us to do what the Indiana Jones saga has always encouraged: dream of a time not so long ago, when a fedora, a whip, and some wit could throw open legend and make us believe. That’s what this movie did, and, for all its problems, it remained an Indiana Jones film from beginning to end.

'Context happens'

2008-05-15T10:08:00.002-05:00

[Disclaimer: You are about to read a polemic]

I've been thinking some about missions lately, and the idea of 'context' has come up repeatedly. Some say we need to 'contextualize the Gospel' in order to make it understandable to others. The problem is that the context or culture of any one person, much less an entire group of people, is infinitely removed from yours. There is no such thing as the "University context" or the "Nigerian context" or the "Palestinian context." There are only specific people, places, events, resemblances, and analogies. That's not to say we can't generalize, but we should always check and chuck our generalizations when they cease to describe well.

Instead of contextualizing the Gospel, let's just be mindful that context just happens. Be mindful and stop worrying so much.

Spotting 'Human Flourishing'

2008-04-11T17:32:00.002-05:00

As I prepare for this December's Following Christ conference, I keep spotting its theme of human flourishing in many and varied places. See if you can spot it here in some remarks by the Rt. Revd. N.T. Wright, who will be expositing Colossians at this year's conference.

Part III: Why I no longer use the word 'incarnational.'

2008-03-10T13:55:00.002-05:00

Index:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV (not yet published)

I've been angling slowly towards making this point: the current use of the word "incarnational" to describe ministry or presence falls short of the Incarnation itself.

One can use the word to describe ministry if we just start with the word itself, "incarnation," as enfleshment or embodiment. Again, in this connection there are (usually) three things involved: a bearer/mediator, a receiver, and the thing being borne/mediated. The means of the mediation is generally unspecified, and, when specified, rarely allows (if we're honest with ourselves) for the mediated to be a person of any sort. This path that moves upward from "incarnation" leaves little hope that our incarnational ministries can do much good or connect with anything beyond our humanity.

On the other hand, what happens if we start this discussion by talking about the Incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus Christ as witnessed in Holy Scripture and taught us by our common inheritance of faith?

I think we would find something completely different than what I used to describe by the word 'incarnational,' and in its complete difference we would find it unable to be generalized to our ministry contexts.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is a single and utterly unique event that took place roughly 2,000 years ago in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ maintains the three levels of presence, embodied presence, and kenotic embodied presence, but none of these three, and not all three together, go as far in describing this Mystery as they should. Scripture set us down a path that our fathers and mothers in faith followed to discover that in the Incarnation the mediation between God and humanity is no longer generally unspecified. They described this mediation as none other than the union of two natures (human and divine) in the One Person of the Mediator, Jesus Christ. In this, the hypostatic union, the eternal Son of God enters unique and irreplaceable fellowship with the human nature of Jesus Christ. This fellowship is uniquely with this human being (the son of Mary) and in this specific connection (one Person, two Natures). It is a personal union. That which is mediated to the world in Jesus Christ is none other than the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, whom T. F. Torrance calls the 'personalizing Person,' and in this mediation the Trinity itself is irrevocably connected to humanity.

If we start by thinking about what Scripture and our tradition says happened in Jesus Christ, then it becomes very difficult to use the word incarnational of anything other than the Incarnation itself for Incarnation soars high above the ideas of moral and spiritual mediation (as described by 'embodied' and 'kenotic embodied' presence) while still containing them in this unique and special hypostatic union, connection, and mediation. God becoming one of us in Jesus Christ in the hypostatic union is the content of the Incarnation that differentiates it from all other categories and therefore defines it (if we start with Jesus Christ). If we use an adjectival form that does not allow for this specific and definitive content, then we have muddied our language and threaten to undercut our souls' awe at the beauty and grandeur of the Incarnation itself.

Therefore, the reason I no longer use the word 'incarnational,' and the reason that I think you should stop using it too, is that unless we are willing to say that everyday human beings or institutions can become hypostically united with God or the Spirit, using the word 'incarnational' makes little to no sense and shows our lack of care about the language we use to point to one of the central Mysteries of our faith. I feel like much of the original intent behind using 'incarnational' has to do with 1) raising the value of the thing described, such as in incarnational ministry, and 2) connecting the thing described with the Person and Work of Christ. These are both wonderful things, but I contend that instead of doing either of them, using 'incarnational' actually devalues the Incarnation from which the modifier 'incarnational' is formed and subsequently devalues the ministry that we claim derives from it.

That is not to say that we should throw away the word 'incarnational' and find nothing to replace it. The actual work that 'incarnational' has done (as described in part i) needs to be preserved, but we should change metaphors. In the next and final part (iv), I will argue that the word 'embodied' is the word we should employ instead of 'incarnational' and that the former's use opens us to richer and deeper theological/pastoral reflection and practice than the latter.

[concluded in part iv]

Part II: Why I no longer use the word 'incarnational.'

2008-03-08T16:07:00.005-06:00

Index:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV (not yet published)

So far, I've described three layers of how I've seen the modifier "incarnational" used. The first use is "presence." The second use is "embodied presence." The third is either "kenotic presence" or "kenotic embodied presence." In the second and third use there is a mediation involved, usually of an idea or ideal and usually in an unspecified way or form.

This is well and good if one starts this journey from "incarnation" as a word and then moves on to talk about ministry. Very basically, "incarnation" derives from the Latin for "in the flesh" or "enfleshment." The word incarnation, as an artifact of its etymology, really is just a fancy (and, perhaps all-important, theological-sounding) word for "embodiment." Anyone or anything can be an embodiment or incarnation, in this sense, of an ethical or moral ideal such as love, courage, and wisdom. At this point, "incarnational" ministry is just ministry that is bodily present for people in need.

One can add the Spirit into the discussion if one wants, but it doesn't change the necessarily moral (and only moral/spiritual) nature of the embodiment. In fact, one would wonder if the Spirit could retain any personal element at all "starting from the bottom" with 'incarnation.' Surely, from the bottom up, we could only legitimately talk about the Person of God as an anthropomorphism, nothing more. If that is the case, what could we possibly mean by the incarnation of Jesus Christ?

We can already see the problems that become evident when we start at the bottom with the word 'incarnation.' The problem becomes even more evident if we start from the other end with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ itself.

(continued in part iii)

Index:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV (not yet published)

Why I no longer use the word "incarnational" (and why I don't think you should use it either); Part I

2008-03-05T09:24:00.008-06:00

I've heard a lot since college about this adjective, "incarnational." Well, actually, I haven't heard a lot about it. I've heard it used, repeatedly, to describe things like "ministry" or "presence." You might hear something like, "We strive to practice incarnational ministry here," or, "The Church needs to be more incarnational." As you can see from the title, I don't use this word any longer, and I want to share my reasons with you but that can wait for later (I'm not quite sure how many posts this will have!). Here, I want to describe three layers of meaning-in-practice I see in this concept's use along a theological sliding-scale. Next time I'll tell you why I no longer use that adjective (and, by extension, why I don't think you should either).

"Incarnational"
At its least theological, when people use the word "incarnational," they mean "presence." In the Incarnation, God became one of us and dwelt with us. He was present with us in Christ. Therefore, we should be present with others in the same way. There are two things in this understanding: the person coming to be present (x) and the person with whom the first is being present (y).

At a slightly more theological level, people might mean "embodied" by "incarnational." Embodied connotes more than just "being there;" it also evokes a type of doing. Incarnational anything, understood as embodiment, conceives of three things, or, rather, keeps the two people (x and y) from above but introduces an abstract ideal that is mediated (by generally unspecified means) through one of the persons involved. You can see this second theological level of the understanding of "incarnational" in this standard phrase: "The Church should incarnate God's love to the world." In this instance, person or persons x [the Church] incarnates idea/ideal z [God's love] so that y [the world] can see it.

At its most theological, when people talk about incarnational ministry, they speak by analogy about the kenosis, or self-emptying, of Christ (cf. Phil 2). This sense is the trickiest to describe because it can move along at least two tracks.

The first track might take kenosis as something for us to do for the sake of the message we bear. This retains elements of "incarnational" as "embodied" except that in order to bear the idea/ideal to the world, we have to humble ourselves, empty ourselves, in order to let the message/Word/Gospel/Spirit shine through. It adds a definitely moral tone to the rhetoric.

The second track might see self-emptying itself as the message. This returns to "incarnational" as presence but, again, adds a moral element to it. It's not enough just to be with people, one must empty oneself of oneself, and that self-emptying is the content of the Christian faith.

As I lay this groundwork, I need to add some caveats:
1) I'm not thinking of anyone specifically as I describe the above. As I think about the shape of the way I and others have used the adjective "incarnational" over the past decade, this is what comes to mind.
2) Ergo, from none of these above statements should it be taken that I am trying to develop a typology by which we might categorize people's "incarnational" thinking. Any one person using the word probably slides around and through these 'categories' very freely. If not already, the reason for the categories will become apparent in my next post.

Next up: Why I no longer use the word "incarnational," and why you shouldn't either.

Index:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV (not yet published)

Christian Heroism

2008-02-27T11:44:00.003-06:00

"It is Christian heroism--a rarity, to be sure--to venture wholly to become oneself, an individual human being, this specific individual human being, alone before God, alone in this prodigious strenuousness and this prodigious responsibility; but it is not Christian heroism to be taken in by the idea of man in the abstract or to play the wonder game with world history" (italics mine).
-Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

Saturday Day Trip

2008-02-14T11:38:00.005-06:00

Last Saturday, Monique and I took a day trip to East Tennessee. I spent the first part of the day at a small conference in Monteagle, TN at the Dubose Conference Center. Professors Peter Augustine Lawler and William McClay presented on topics related to human dignity and bio-technology. During my shut-in hours, Monique explored the surrounding area, visiting Sewannee and the University of the South. After the conference, we drove up Lookout Mountain in Georgia and then descended to Chattanooga, TN where we ate dinner in a train car attached to the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo!

As I think about the trip now, I have two nuggets to share.

Dr. Lawler, borrowing a phrase from Pascal, talked about the greatness and misery of the human person, namely that our greatness is our misery. We are the only living creatures we know that are fully aware that they are going to die...and they don't like it one bit. Our misery comes from our awareness of our own impending and necessary deaths and the lack of time and space that gives us to live lives of substance and meaning. Because we are these creatures of both greatness and misery, whenever we advance one aspect, like our greatness, we find ourselves more miserable than before. Lawler likes to use the example of parnaoid soccer moms. How come, in a country that is arguably the safest and healthiest country ever in the history of the world, people are more paranoid and nervous than ever? A quick answer is that as our greatness increases so does our misery. As we've made death more and more accidental, the more and more we fear it.
The Chattanooga Choo Choo started running from Cincinnati to Chattanooga in the 1880's. Believe it or not, it was the FIRST railway connecting the North and the South in this way. As we were looking at the train and having dinner, we wondered how the inevitable culture clash that ended in the American Civil War might have been mitigated if it were just easier to go visit your relatives up North or down South. Without that fast and easy transportation, it's easy to see how the two could see themselves as truly separate cultures and, for the South, countries.

That's that. Let me know what you think.

Some GCF pictures

2007-12-20T10:55:00.001-06:00

TableTalk: a biweekly theology discussion we sponsor. We've been talking about the Nicene Creed this semester.

Ken Myers: Reflection on the Incarnation

2007-12-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

I'm a new subscriber to the Mars Hill Audio Journal, and I received a letter from host Ken Myers recently that reflected on the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation in the context of our market-driven economy. Wanting to share it with you, I found the majority of the text posted at the Creedal Christian blog. I hope you enjoy the reflection:

In the past few decades, it has become increasingly common for churches to rely on marketing data to determine the shape of their ministry. It is widely accepted that the Church is like any other provider of a commodity – that the desires, expectations, and assumptions of its potential “customers” or “clients” must be honored. In preparing to celebrate Advent this year, I have been inspired by this model of ministry to imagine what might have happened if God had relied on market research to tailor the form of his ministry to mankind. Given the religious and philosophical assumptions in the world 2,000 years ago, I think it’s safe to assume that consumer-defined salvation would not have involved the Incarnation. At best, we might have gotten something like Good Friday, but certainly no Christmas, and maybe no Easter.

As St. Paul observed in his visit to Athens, the world of his day included many religions, many schemes and strategies to implore deities for mercy and favor. The idea of the necessity of salvation for human beings was not as implausible then as it is for us now. Israel understood the need for salvation, the need for forgiveness in light of human sin. The descendants of Abraham believed in the coming of Messiah, but most likely the idea that their God would enter human history as a human being was not widely entertained, in spite of the fact that one of God’s appellations was Immanuel: “God with us.”

The Greco-Roman world believed in something like the Logos, but the idea that the Logos would be made flesh was repugnant (which is one reason why the apostle John is so emphatic about this reality in the prologue to his gospel). The idea that the Being above all being would become a baby in need of care was metaphysically incorrect. The Greco-Roman mind could not imagine that (in the words of theologian Michael Williams): “The power that called the world into being [could take] on the weakness of creatureliness. Contrary to the universality and changelessness sought by the philosophies of Greece, John declares that meaning and truth are to be found in historical particularity, a specific historical person: Jesus of Nazareth, the Word become flesh. The scandal of the Christian faith is that God became flesh in Jesus Christ.”

If God had been looking for a way to establish a plausible, immediately recognizable religious brand in the region around the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago – a product that would meet the felt needs of the residents of Syria, Asia, Macedonia, and Italy of that period – it would certainly not have included something as humble as the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

A religious program modeled after the natural human expectations may have included something like the cross. It may have included a desire to be right with God, to be delivered from death and judgment and anxiety and strife. Even a “consumer-driven” religion might well require a Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But in God’s own redemptive plan, the Lamb of God is also the Son of Man. The cross which accomplishes our salvation is bracketed by a manger and an empty tomb, which define the shape of our redemption as something with human, earthly consequences. More than just a logical precondition for the Atonement, the Incarnation also establishes the trajectory for our new life as a truly human life. There is a theological link between confidence in the full humanity of Jesus and a recognition of the ramifications of our salvation across the full range of our own humanity, across all of the ways in which we engage God’s creation.

Much of modern culture, with its Gnostic undertones, alienates us from creation and its givenness. Theologian Colin Gunton sees the affirmation of the Incarnation as essential to our enthusiastic participation in creation and therefore in cultural life. “A world that owes its origin to a God who makes it with direct reference to one who was to become incarnate – part of that world – is a world that is a proper place for human beings to use their senses, minds and imaginations, and to expect that they will not be wholly deceived in doing so.”

Christians have the only account of human and natural origins that can give cultural life meaning. But even after 2,000 years of opportunity to reflect on the Incarnation, many contemporary Christians persist in believing in a Gnostic salvation, a salvation that has no cultural consequences. In such a dualistic understanding, our souls are saved, the essential immaterial aspect of our being is made right with God, but the actions of our bodies – what we actually do in space and time – are a matter of indifference if not futility. Salvation is an inward matter only. It affects our attitudes and some of our ideas. But insofar as our cultural activities have any Christian significance it is as mere marketing efforts – things we do to attract others to our essentially Gnostic salvation.

Believing in a gospel that has few earthly consequences is, ironically, just the sort of state our secularist neighbors would wish us to sustain. They, too, are dualists, believing that religion may be a fine thing for people, so long as they keep it private. Their secularism isn’t threatened by Christians as long as they aren’t too “Incarnational.” As long as the cultural lives of Christians aren’t significantly different from those of materialists and pagans, secularism is safe. Christians may pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but as long as they don’t actually do anything that demonstrates how such a petition should affect their political, economic, and cultural activities, the Enlightenment legacy is safe.

A hearty appreciation of the meaning of the Incarnation could deliver us from serving the interests of secularists. In his recent book Far as the Curse is Found, Michael Williams writes that in his gospel, “John does not conceive of Christ as a Gnostic heavenly Savior who comes from heaven to bring souls trapped in the world back to their home above. Rather, Jesus comes to bring his people eternal life on earth, a life that will mean the resurrection of the body at the last day.” Later in his book, Williams argues that the Incarnation is evidence that in saving his people, God does not thereby abandon his creation. “By participating in our reality, the Man from heaven affirms the goodness of creaturely life, the redeemability of creation and creaturely existence. The gospel is not the fracture of heaven and earth but the wedding of the two, embodied as they both are in the incarnation of the one who is vere Deus (‘fully divine’) and vere Homo (‘fully human’). In the incarnation God declared his intentions not only for humanity but also for all creation. The creation is as much an object of the sovereign love and redemption of God as is the soul of man.” …

I began this letter by suggesting that a religion shaped by popular opinion would not have involved the Incarnation. Similarly, religious practices shaped by raw consumer preferences are unlikely to resist disordered cultural fashions. As long as people assume that religion is a matter of cleaning up their inner lives, of changing only their hearts, they will choose forms of religion that fit the cultural conventions with which they are at home. As long as they are essentially dualists, as long as they think of religion as something detached from their humanity in all of its details, the claim that some cultural forms honor the order of God’s Creation better than others will remain implausible to them. Unless the Church bears witness to this idea, unless the Church takes cultural life seriously enough to be willing to make distinctions between healthy and unhealthy cultural forms, neither seekers nor disciples are likely to get beyond their dualism.

Be ready to save your neighbor's proposition

2007-12-19T11:19:00.000-06:00

A quote from St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Let it be presupposed that every good Christian is to be more ready to save his neighbor's proposition than to condemn it. If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.

For a full commentary on this quote, see here.

Religious Nuts

2007-12-14T08:31:00.001-06:00

After a long posting hiatus, I'm here to post a joke I got in the mail today. More posting will come soon.

Religious Nuts

There were four country churches in a small Texas town: The Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church and the Catholic Church. Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.

One day, the Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.

In the Baptist Church the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow and there were twice as many there the next week.

The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creation. So, they humanely trapped the Squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.

But -- The Catholic Church came up with the best and most effective solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.

A Year of Getting Things Done

2007-11-29T16:25:00.001-06:00

A year ago, I posted a review of David Allen's Getting Things Done. In the last year, I've stuck pretty closely to Allen's recommendations in that book, and I wanted to share again how wonderful it has been for this head-in-the-clouds guy to finally find a system that can keep my feet on the ground. If you've never picked up the book, do so.

I dare you to get organized.

New Perspective on Paul?

2007-10-22T13:27:00.001-05:00

At the recommendation of a friend, I located and read this article at Christianity Today online. Written by Simon Gathercole (senior lecturer at Aberdeen, just accepted an appointment to Cambridge), "What did Paul Really Mean?" introduces the New Perspective on Paul and provides a fair assessment of the thought. Gathercole's work here is very important for people curious about the new perspective, for those who hate it with a passion, and for those who love it with an equal passion. I hope you'll take the time to read and ponder it…

…and post a comment below!

Ganked

2007-10-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

Gamemastering and Theological Language

2007-10-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

Some of you know that I'm an avid fan of Star Wars and play the Star Wars Role-Playing Game.

Well, I should be more precise. I don't play the Star Wars RPG. I game master it. As GM, I'm responsible for narrating the world, describing the actions of non-player characters, making sure the game runs according to the rules. For instance, my four wonderful players' characters enter a cantina. I'm responsible to tell them what's special about the cantina, what kind of music is playing, how the tables are arranged, and what kinds of aliens are lined up at the bar. I also have to make those aliens come alive to the players. One of them has been nursing a grudge, for instance, and is looking for revenge. When the Gungan, grudge-carrying, vibro-axe wielding thug finally makes her move, I have to make sure the combat rules are taken into account. And this scene is part of a larger story, one that has its own goals, and is the conjunction of this larger story and the individual stories of the character's involved.

I love GM'ing.

I also love theology.

From many hours of practice in both RPG's and theology, I think there is this similarity worth noting: both GM'ing and theologizing are about narrating an unseen world and encouraging participation in it.

In Star Wars, the unseen world exists in the imagination and provides a context for heroic deeds and epic story-telling. In Christian faith, the unseen world exists all around us (if we have the eyes to see it) and provides a context . . . for heroic deeds and epic story-telling. There is a huge difference, though, since a 'heroic deed' is something far different in Star Wars than in Christianity. In one, the hero (Luke) overthrows the tyrant (the Emperor) through strength and honor. In the other, the hero (Jesus) overthrows the tyrant (Sin, Death, the Devil, and our twisted hearts) through weakness and shame. The similarities illumine the differences.

In the Star Wars RPG, I'm GM'ing, but I'd be bummed if the players just stared at me. I want the players to play the game, to participate in the world we're creating together. In Christian faith, I'm theologizing, sure, but I'd be really bummed if the people I'm around and with didn't have eyes to see the unseen world impinging on their own meager constructions, to really participate in the inbreaking Kingdom of God. In one, I narrate an escape from reality into an alternate, sub-reality. In the other, I want to narrate an escape to Reality, the reality as described, lived, and enacted in the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Again the similarities illumine the differences.

In conclusion, I do want to highlight one similarity as a type of analogical apology for theologizing. Without good GM'ing, the players can't 'see' the world in which they must play. They stumble blindly without guidance. Similarly, without good theology, Christians can't 'see' the world in which they are already playing the wrong game. In both, knowing the 'rules' is not enough, getting together in a gaming 'community' is not enough. Both require clear and evocative presentations of the world in which we play. Without that, both RPGs and Christian faith fall into meaninglessness. Insofar as the GM and the theologian can clearly and evocatively present the world (and are freed by their communities to do that), they will bring life and goodness. Insofar as they do not (or are not free to), they will bring darkness and illusion. Abuse does not bar use. Gamers call for good gamemasters. Christians should call for good theologians.

Faith AND Obedience

2007-09-26T13:11:00.000-05:00

I've been struck recently how polemics have upset a tendentious balance in our rhetoric about belief and practice. These polemics see an overuse of a term in their opponents and so overcorrect on the other side (the opponents can be anyone from liberals to conservatives to modernity itself). The problem with these over-corrections is that they ignore a very important logical dictum and its corollary, a dictum, by the way, which I think is more wisdom than logic:

Abuse does not bar use.

The solution to abuse is not disuse but proper use.

In the polemics (generally between liberals and conservatives) there is an over-emphasis on either Faith or Obedience to the point where, rhetorically, it's stated, rather baldly, that one could be had without the other. Such a patently absurd statement is not what most of the polemicists actually believe, but they continue along their rhetorical path because they haven't heeded the above rules. Examples: since all those 'orthodox' talk about is faith, then we can't talk about belief, only practice, or belief subsumed into practice, OR since all those 'liberals' talk about is social justice, we should stay away from talk about justice, only faith, or practice subsumed into faith.

What both sides miss is the inherent relationship between faith and obedience, one that's typified in a relationship of unity and distinction. For the Christian, faith and obedience can be distinguished from one another, but they cannot be separated. Faith without work is dead (see James). Work without faith is meaningless.

And all this was prompted by the Psalm (119) from the Daily Office today:

98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me.

99 I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statutes.

100 I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.

Listening to the Mundane

2007-09-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

In the Daily Office readings yesterday, I came across the story of Naaman the Syrian coming to Elisha for healing of his leprosy. I was astonished how readily Naaman turned away from Elisha when he commanded him to do something easy. Take a look at this from 2 Kings 5:

9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he turned and went off in a rage.

13 Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

Naaman's servant really understood his master (and, I think, us). He understood that we want to really contribute to our salvation. We want to do a "great thing" (v. 13). We want it to count. We don't want to be told to go take another bath. In our case, we don't really want to be told to repent and believe the good news (Mk 1:15), but as we stand at Elisha's door, we are told to do just that. How many of us go away angry from our wounded pride with no one to bring us back? How often do we refuse to listen to the voice of God when He commands the mundane?

That word...

2007-09-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Richard Rohr recently and find myself repeating Inigo Montoya's famous line:

"That word, you keep using it. I don't think it means what you think it means."

Of course, he is a Catholic which doesn't help this Protestant very much. If you want this delightful experience yourself, you can read Rohr, or maybe this guy, for yourself.

The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups, by Joseph R. Myers

2007-09-10T08:51:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Joseph R. Myer's The Search to Belong (at the suggestion of Dixon Kinser), and I have to say that I found this book extremely helpful in thinking about how communities form and how organizations can help promote community space.

Myers describes four different spaces in which we can experience significant belonging: the public, social, personal, and intimate. He argues (based on the work of Edward T. Hall) that human beings need significant connections in each of these spaces in order to be healthy. Myers contends that the "chemical compound" of healthy belonging is 8 parts public, 4 parts social, 2 parts personal, and 1 part intimate.

Here's how he defines the spaces (142-143):

Public Space
Public bleonging occurs when people connect through an outside influence. Fans of a sports team experience a sense of community because they cheer for the same team. They wear official garb, buy special broadcast viewing privileges, and stay up too late or get up extra early just to see the results of the game. These relationships carry great significance in our lives.

Social Space
Social belonging occurs when we share "snapshots" of what it would be like to be in personal space with us. The phrases "first impression" and "best foot forward" refer to this spatial belonging. You belong socially to your favorite bank teller, your pharmacist, and some of the people with whom you work.

Social belonging is important for two reasons. First, it provides the space for "neighbor" relationships. A neighbor is someone you know well enough to ask for (or provide) small favors. Second, it is important because it provides a safe "selection space or sorting space" for those with whom you would like to develop a "deeper" relationship. In social space we provide the information that helps others decide whether they connect with us. We get just enough information to decide to keep this person in this space or move them to another space.

Personal Space
Through personal belonging, we share private (not "naked") experiences, feelings, and thoughts. We call the people we connect to in this space "close friends." They are those who know more about us than an acquaintance would, yet not so much that they feel uncomfortable.

Intimate Space
In intimate belonging, we share "naked" experiences, feelings, and thoughts. We have very few relationships that are intimate. These people know the "naked truth" about us and the two of us are not "ashamed."

Having a language to describe these relationships and knowing there might be a "harmony" among them (in that 8:4:2:1 ratio) is extremely helpful in thinking through church dynamics. It helps answer the question about why, if true belonging is every congregant in a small group, the highest success rates for small group participation is somewhere around 30%. Part of the problem is that for many the 'ideal' for small group space is intimate space. But, it's difficult for human beings to handle having so many people in intimate space! Churches that have the "move in or move out" mentality to their small group ministry promote only the Public and the Intimate. No wonder that people get lost--there's hardly any social or personal space for them to connect!

Myers argues that social space is especially important and that we should all try to develop "front porches," neutral social spaces where people feel welcome but safe. Our society creates these spaces in places like Starbucks or some strip malls. They are easy places to be with new people. It's neutral ground, neither entirely public nor private. It's social space that keeps us from rushing headlong into the more personal or intimate spaces of the home.

For me, this has helped me think about GCF's small group ministry. The current "backbone" of our work is small groups and large group. Small groups meet 3x a month, and the fourth week of the month, everyone gets together for large group. Small groups are for spiritual formation and large group is for community. But, I needn't think that small groups have to be either personal or intimate to help with individual spiritual formation. Many of our grad students are adults with established significant personal and intimate relationships. If we can help them connect with other Christian scholars in social spaces, then we'll allow them the freedom and space to grow spiritually and in community with others.

I'm very grateful this book came along when it did, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking through issues of personal or communal relationship. You'll be freed and helped by the discussion!

Following Christ 2008

2007-09-07T15:40:00.000-05:00

Mark your calendars. InterVarsity's triennial Graduate and Faculty Ministries conference, Following Christ, has been announced for Dec 27-31, 2008. The convention theme is "Human Flourishing." Here's a brief excerpt from the announcement:

The good news of the gospel brings with it the promise of vocation, a calling to good works that God has prepared for each one of us as we follow Christ. In finding and fulfilling this vocation, we are led to human flourishing, not only for ourselves but also for our neighbors.

If you're interested in learning more about the Following Christ conference, be sure to check out this announcement.

Evangelism and Service: The Alpha Course

2007-09-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

InterVarsity and the Vanderbilt Graduate Christian Fellowship are committed to evangelism and service. We believe that people who are being spiritually formed and who are joining in transformative community should be oriented towards sharing the Gospel both in word (intentional, verbal, etc.) and in deed (acts of redemptive service). It's a commitment we believe in but one we struggle with in the university where we fare much better hosting discussion groups around our commitment to the integration of faith, learning, and practice.

Which is why we are so thankful for the body of Christ! In the body, the weaknesses of one part are helped by the strengths of the others. For GCF, this means partnering with others in the body around Nashville.

St. George's Church, starting Sep 12, is hosting an Alpha Course. Alpha was developed in England, and is a safe way for people curious about Christianity to learn more. I'm happy to announce GCF's partnership with Alpha. If you're a Christian grad student who is struggling to share your faith with your questioning colleagues, invite them to an Alpha course. Send me an email (jason_ingalls@ivstaff.org) to get more information.

InterVarsity Press "Box-o-Guilt"

2007-08-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

Every quarter, InterVarsity Press graces IV staffworkers with what I like to call the "box-o-guilt," the "bog" for short. The bog contains new, free books from InterVarsity Press. This is great for us, but it also means that there are a half-dozen new books that we feel the pressure to read or peruse. Hence, the "box-o-guilt."

The quarter's bog contains the following titles. The first four are group discussion guides. Of the lot, I think Gracism intrigues me the most. I'll post book notes on the ones I end up reading.

Who Was Jesus? by Scot McKnight

Can I Trust the Bible? by Darrell L. Bock

What is Truth? by Paul Copan and Mark Linville

Is God Real? by William Lane Craig and Charles Taliaferro

Jesus without Religion: What did he say? What did he do? What's the point? by Rick James

Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus by Timothy Paul Jones

Gracism: The Art of Inclusion by David A. Anderson

Book Note: Small Group Leadership as Spiritual Direction by Heather Webb

2007-07-31T10:08:00.000-05:00

As GCF gets ready for the Fall Semester, I've been thinking a lot about small group ministry. GCF is committed to asking the tough questions about the integration of faith, learning, and practice, and we find that these questions are best addressed in small groups of people gathered around scripture, book study, or prayer.

I picked up Heather Webb's, Small Group Leadership as Spiritual Direction the other day. A quick read, Webb lays a foundation of what small groups tend to look like, talks about spiritual direction as a practice, reviews the interaction of direction with postmodernism and issues like sin and disclosure in small group settings, and offers three models for small group that are "directed" instead of "led."

The three new models are the "story-centered group," the "text-centered group," and the "prayer-centered group." Her descriptions of these are brief but compelling and may be worth the price of the book.

Some salutary quotes:
"On a rudimentary level, spiritual direction involves two people growing in their understanding of what it means to love God and others" (59).

"This is what spiritual direction is all about. It is pointing out God to someone who might not recognize God's voice" (58).

"Many spiritual directors dislike the term 'director' and prefer words that connote coming alongside someone, such as being a 'midwife.' The director is not leading as much as assisting in the birthing of deeper faith. The director is a friend or a wise mentor to the one in the process of rediscovering God. . . . Spiritual directors struggle with the directee, relying on God's Spirit to serve as the catalytic force for spiritual maturity" (64).

"Rather than seeing direction as a movement inward, it should be seen as the process of moving upward and outward toward God and others" (67).

"The art of spiritual direction can help create a bridge between our faith and the world in which we live [and] will have dialogue at its core. . . . The bridge metaphor means we can walk across without abandoning the starting point. . . . To be on a bridge, we must have a starting point. It is, then, essential that spiritual directors know what they believe. . . . In the face of difference, we have an opportunity to enter mystery that reminds us of our need to trust a God who is bigger than our boxes for God. We are reminded of a world larger than our own" (88-89).

Sermon for July 1, 2007, "Follow Me"

2007-07-18T08:46:00.000-05:00

Text: Luke 9:51-62
I preached this sermon the second Sunday of my New Jersey trip I mentioned in my last post. I've included its full text here. The audio for both this sermon and "The Christ of God" are up on MEFC's website here.

“Follow Me”

When Monique and I lived in Princeton, we went with a group of people to a big, free concert in Philadelphia. Being outdoors, it was sticky, hot, and there were people everywhere! I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a setting like this, but it’s kindof like being in laneless, rush-hour traffic. People push and push to get the best seats, or the seats in the shade, or the seats that you’re aiming to get right then just because you’re aiming to get them. With people everywhere, faces pointed in all different directions, how do you keep a group together?

The method we devised was the hand-to-shoulder line. The lead person looked ahead, spotting holes that would allow our movement, but everyone else kept their eyes (and hands) on the person in front of them. With one person cutting the trail, we could make better progress than any one of us doing it by ourselves. But you did have to hold on and stay focused! If you lost concentration, you would be easily separated from the line by the press of the crowd.

[Page One: Jesus is leaving people behind] From our passage today, there is nothing more ominous than the line from verse 51: “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” More literally, “Jesus set his face for Jerusalem.” The time is approaching for Jesus to be taken into heaven, and Jesus, knowing this, resolves in himself that nothing will stop his journey to Mt. Zion. Whereas Jesus showed patience before, now he is leaving people behind. Jesus is on his way.

The Samaritans cannot stand this. They do not welcome Jesus, because Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus will stand for no complacency here. If the Samaritans will not allow Jesus to stay one night and then depart for Jerusalem, then Jesus will not stay. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and anyone who wants a tame Rabbi is getting left behind.

The man who is walking along the road cannot stand this. He thinks that he will follow Jesus wherever he goes, but Jesus lets the man know that while the foxes and birds have places to rest, there is no rest for the Son of Man. Jesus in on his way to Jerusalem, and anyone who wants comfort is getting left behind.

Jesus pauses briefly to say to another man, “Follow me.” But, the man replies, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus retorts sharply, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and anyone who puts their family first is getting left behind.

“Still another says, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’ Jesus replies, ‘No one who put his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.’” Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and cannot stop or look back, and anyone who is hesitant or wants to wait or hedge their bets is getting left behind when they lose their grip on Jesus’ shoulder in the press of their lives. There are too many worries and cares in their world. The people left in Jesus’ wake must be thinking, “What could I have done to be worthy to follow this Jesus?”

[Page Two: Jesus is leaving the world behind] Last week, we talked about Jesus’ command for his disciples to take up their cross daily to follow him. Jesus, though once for all crucified, dead, buried, raised again, and ascended, still is leading disciples to Jerusalem by his Holy Spirit. Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, and he’s leaving the world behind.

The people of the world want a Jesus who will sit and stay awhile. Like the Samaritans, they don’t want a Jesus who is on his way to Jerusalem. They want a Jesus who will give them pearls of wisdom instead of pain. They want a Jesus who will show them wonderful mysteries instead of their sin. But, Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, and the world that wants a tame Rabbi is getting left behind.

The people of the world want a Jesus who will give rest for their heads. They want a Psalm 23 Jesus, a Jesus who comforts them when they are sad but never saddens them when they are comforted. But, the Son of Man has no place to rest his head. Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, and the world that wants peace instead of a spiritual sword is getting left behind.

The people of the world want a Jesus who will put their family first. They want a Jesus that will teach them how to be good husbands and wives, but they don’t want a Jesus who might tell them that they’re loving their spouses or children or friends more than they’re loving God. Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, and the world that wants a stable society is getting left behind.

The people of the world want a Jesus who will pause a moment so they can say goodbye to their old lives. They want a Jesus who sympathizes with their secret sins, but they don’t want a Jesus who wants to forgive and forget them. They just want to say goodbye to their past, but Jesus is focused on the future. Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, and the world that wants to hedge its bets is getting left behind.

The world has too many worries and cares, too many broken relationships, too much difficulty with obedience. Left behind by Jesus, the must sometimes wonder, “How could we have made ourselves worthy to follow this Jesus?”

[Page Three: Jesus is taking his disciples with him (even though they don’t deserve it)] Looking back at our passage for today, we might find it difficult to believe that people are actually making this trip with Jesus. This ragtag group of disciples is somehow keeping up a good hand on Jesus’ shoulder as they make their way through the crowd to Jerusalem!

They make their first appearance in verse 52, sent out as messengers in front of Jesus to make a room ready for him in the Samaritan village. Not only are they coming along behind, but they’re being sent out ahead. The disciples seem to be doing just fine, until they hit a bump in the road: the Samaritans want Jesus to stay a while…since the disciples tell them he won’t, they choose not to welcome him. When Jesus walks into the village, the disciples report the indignity and ask Jesus for permission to call fire down from heaven to destroy them. Jesus stops walking only for a moment to turn and rebuke them before walking to the next village. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and the disciples who want righteous anger from their Lord are getting…left behind? No, for some reason they aren’t. For some mysterious reason, Jesus is taking his disciples with him to Jerusalem whether they deserve it or not.

For some reason, Jesus has chosen this ragtag bunch, and he’s not leaving them behind. This point is reiterated over and over again in the Gospels. Jesus is about preaching the Kingdom of God, but his disciples don’t get it. Jesus is about healing the sick, but the disciples are in it for the power. Jesus is about dying for sinners in Jerusalem, but the disciples scatter at the first sign of trouble. When they ask the question, “How can we be worthy to follow Jesus?” they can’t find a good answer. They aren’t worthy in the least, but Jesus persists in bringing them along. Pressed by the crowd, by the concerns of the world, the disciples lose their grip on Jesus shoulder, but instead of getting left behind or lost in the crowd, they find that Jesus has reached behind him to grab their hand. Jesus persists in holding on to their hand even when they persist in letting go of his. Jesus is creating obedience in them, leading them to make the hard decisions, the decisions that hurt.

[Page Four: Jesus is taking us with him] Perhaps the number one evidence of our faith is that people keep on following this Jesus. As he runs ahead, not only our world but we ourselves fall behind. The world loses touch with Jesus and creates images or replicas of him, but some, some of us, even, persist in following Jesus to Jerusalem. What is there to explain this? Only one thing, and it is not a “what,” it is a “who.” Jesus is taking us with him, even though we don’t deserve it, through his free grace.

St. John wrote that Jesus is the eternal Word of God and that the Father created the world through this Word. Human beings were created to follow the Word through his world, one hand on his shoulder on a guided tour of the richness and depth of all that God had created for us. But, there was a test, a test that we failed. At the simple allure of the serpent, Adam and Eve let go of the Word’s shoulder and fell behind and were lost.

All of us their children are also lost. The tempting voice of the serpent has been multiplied thousands of times over as he speaks in other people’s voices. We were lost. But the Word, always moving forward to Jerusalem from all eternity, moved back into our world when he took on flesh and walked among us as Jesus Christ. This time the Word resolved not to let us fall behind. In becoming a human being, he persists in holding onto our hands. In taking us with him to the cross, he has killed the world in us. In taking us with him through his resurrection, he has given us a new start and a promise that he will never let go of us. In taking us with him in his ascension, he has given us the promise of new and eternal life, as St. Paul said in Colossians: we are now hidden with Christ in God.

Jesus is, as the book of Hebrews puts it, the author of our faith. He is the pioneer who cuts the trail ahead of us. This trail leads us necessarily to suffering and a death to ourselves and to our wants in the world, but it also leads us to resurrection and the glory of new life. Hidden with Christ in God, we are now becoming what God has claimed that we are in Jesus Christ. Those things that you know you should do but are putting off are already done and completed in Christ. By the Holy Spirit, Jesus is making you the person that is hidden with Christ in God. You might be scared of asking forgiveness from a person in this room, but in Jesus, you are already the person who has experienced that pain, embarrassment, and sorrow and come through the other side. By the Holy Spirit, Jesus is making you the person that is hidden with Christ in God. You might be hurting others by what you say and do, but in Jesus Christ that part of you is already dead and a new life of love has been raised. By the Holy Spirit, Jesus is making you the person that is hidden with Christ in God. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and, thanks be to God, he is taking us with him, holding on to our hands, and making sure we don’t get lost in the crowd, even though we don’t deserve it. Amen.

Sermon for June 24, 2007: "The Christ of God"

2007-07-03T09:27:00.000-05:00

I've been in New Jersey the last week attending a conference and raising money for my work with InterVarsity. While in town, I was given the opportunity to preach twice at Montgomery Evangelical Free Church (www.mefc.org; both sermons will be available soon for streaming audio and podcast download on their website under "Sermon Player").

Both Sundays, I preached the Gospel text from the Revised Common Lectionary. It's fun, and just a little demanding, to hear God's Word for a specific situation from a text you didn't choose. My experience the last two weeks reemphasizes to me that the whole Gospel can be found in all the Bible's parts.

Note: There was a commissioning service for Stephen Ministers this Sunday. Stephen Ministries is a lay pastoral care program. Also, the brackets indicate the sections of the sermon. I follow very closely Paul Scott Wilson's The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching (I think this is a must have and highly practical guide to preaching well; I read it through again in preparing my sermons this year, and, 2 years after preaching class, I love it even more).

Luke 9:18-24

“The Christ of God”

[Introduction] From time to time, we all say things that we don’t really understand. The boy who sees a girl and says, “I’m going to marry that girl” will only proudly remember he said that if he marries her. “For better or worse ‘til death do us part,” sounds poetic until the worse comes and we realize what we really said. The quick-spoken and short, “I hope you have children just like you,” from an exasperated parent hangs like a curse over the child when, as nature seems to have it, they DO start having children just like them. We say these things, they almost slip past our lips, and then, only later, do we really realize what they mean. This is the hidden power of our cutting words, promises, and confessions.

[Page 1: The disciples had to lose their lives]“‘But what about you?” Jesus asked the disciples. ‘Who do you say that I am?’”

Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

When the other Gospels record this event, Jesus makes a much bigger deal out of Peter’s confession, saying things like, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven,” or, “You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church.” In other words, he couldn’t have come up with this on his own. Our reading from Luke today highlights the same reality in a different aspect. Luke highlights that Peter didn’t realize the full import of his confession. He didn’t realize that in proclaiming Jesus the Christ of God, he really was signing his own death sentence. For this confession, he would have to lose his life.

For Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

Verse 18 sets the stage. Jesus is praying in private and his disciples are with him. He asks them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” Up to this point, he has been healing and ministering and preaching, and it’s time for the quarterly evaluation of the congregation and the leadership.

The disciples respond quickly. “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” The crowd, apparently, is only saying good things, or the disciples are editing. It doesn’t seem to matter to Jesus.

“But what about you?”

“The Christ of God.”

Peter is right, but he didn’t understand what his confession really means. This is why Jesus commands them to be silent. If the people who have been with Jesus day in and day out don’t understand yet, then surely the majority of the crowd will not either. Jesus tells him that the Christ MUST suffer and be rejected, killed, and raised. Not only that, those who want to follow the Christ of God have to follow the same path. The disciples MUST deny themselves and take up crosses daily to follow. In the other Gospels, it’s here that Peter rebukes Jesus, and where Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.” Peter doesn’t want to have his glorious dreams of a Messiah torn down into this divine MUST. Peter wans a glorious Christ, but Jesus tells him that he MUST have a broken, torn, and defeated Christ. He wants a glorious place beside Christ, but Jesus tells him that he MUST lose his life in order to save it. In the end, Peter has become so focused on his life goals and expectations that he wants Jesus to conform to his expectations. But instead Jesus says to Peter that he must lose his life if he wants to save it.

[Page 2: We have to lose our lives] And the same is true for us: We have to lose our lives if we want to save them. You see, our problem is much like the disciples’. When Jesus puts the question to us about what the world is saying about him, we can say all kinds of things. “Well, Jesus, the world thinks you’re a great moral teacher, a political revolutionary, an advocate for the poor, a path to mystical enlightenment.”

“But who do you say that I am?”

By now, we expect this question and well up with pride because we know the answer: “You’re the Christ of God, only begotten Son of the Father, the Word incarnate, one Person with two Natures, God’s Revelation and the path to Reconciliation, our Salvation and our Promise of everlasting life.”

But, Jesus says to us as he said to his disciples, “I may be all those things, but my path isn’t one of glory but one of a cross. My path will lead you to participate with me in my cross. My path will cause you to lose your life in order to save it.”

The costs are steep. Hate your father and mother, Jesus says at one point. Pluck out your eye if it’s causing you to sin. Seek first the kingdom of God. Leave family and friends for the sake of the Gospel. We have to lose our lives. This is the divine MUST that we come up against as disciples. Jesus must suffer and die. We must participate in that suffering by laying down our lives as well. We must lose our lives if we want to confess him as the Christ of God.

But, like Peter, we don’t want to. We like to hold on to our Messianic dreams. We want to be successful. We want to be rich and powerful. We want to be recognized and respected (and, by the way, will break relationship with almost anyone over the smallest slight, compounding sin with sin until we get what we deserve). We will hold on to institution and power even at the expense of others. But Jesus says that we must lose our lives.

Since we want glorious lives, we seek to follow successful people, and we event twist our confession of Jesus to make him the kind of person we want to be ourselves. We want Jesus to be a great business person. We want Jesus to be a great counselor. We want Jesus to be an All-American athlete or a biker or a hip, relevant, Birkenstock-wearing yuppie. We want Jesus to lift weights at God’s Gym or cast ballots, depending on who we like at the time, either for elephants or donkeys. In the end, we have become so focused on ourselves that we don’t want to participate in Jesus’ life. We want Jesus to participate in ours. But, Jesus says, we must lose our lives if we want to save them. But, we don’t want to.

[Page 3: God saved Jesus’ life] Verse 22: “And he said, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Thanks be to God: the end of Jesus’ life is not the end of the story. His disciples expected a Messiah to come in glory, but Jesus knew that he MUST suffer and be killed before the glory of the Resurrection. Jesus gave up his life, but God saved it on the third day. God saved Jesus’ life.

This is an important thing to consider. Jesus, fully God and fully human, walked among us for a short time. In that time, he lived in complete obedience to the Father, even to death on the cross. He lived in that divine MUST with his face pointed to a cross and walked the road from his birth to his death in humility and righteousness. When he submitted himself to this final death, he submitted himself as the Christ of God, the Messiah who everyone felt was supposed to be a hero, but instead was a servant. After he was killed, God raised him from the dead. God saved Jesus’ life.

So, when Jesus told the disciples’ that they had to lose their lives in order to save them, this was in the background. He was losing his life. The disciples were to take up their cross and follow Jesus. The life of the disciple is the life of walking with Jesus into Jerusalem at the end of his ministry, into pain, suffering, and death with a joy, a peace, and a confidence that God is in control. Jesus promises that if they would participate in his death by taking up their cross and following him in faith and obedience, then they will also be raised together with Christ in his resurrection. God saved Jesus’ life from the tomb, so also will God save their lives from shame, suffering, and death.

And from what we know, the disciples trusted God in this. They embraced Jesus’ cross and lived their lives as lost for his sake and the Gospel. It is said that some were crucified like Jesus, others were fed to lions, still others were flayed alive. But, first, because they lived their lives as lost, they experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and saw God saving thousands of people’s lives all over the world. The Scripture tells us about the communion of saints in which these apostles’ now live, and it promises for them and for us the final resurrection from the dead. It’s interesting that many tradition churches when they come to the part of the Nicene Creed that mentions the resurrection from the dead, they cross themselves. The path to resurrection is through the cross.

[Page 4: God will save our lives] Because God was faithful to raise his Son Jesus from the dead, he will raise everyone who believes. God saved Jesus’ life, and God will save our lives, too. If we make the confession that he is the “Christ of God,” we will of necessity find ourselves in pain, sorrow, and suffering, but we will endure these things for the joy set before us. St. Paul put it this way in Philippians 3: “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead.”

We cannot earn the resurrection—there is only following Jesus along his way to the cross. First we believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose again on the third day for us and in our place. Our first step along the path is to lose our lives to God in faith.

Second, by God’s grace, we have to lose our lives in service to God and others. Faith is followed necessarily by obedience. God has saved our life already, so we need to let God worry about the results of our obedience, about the clothes on our back, about the hairs on our heads. Trust and obey, the old song says, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.

It’s appropriate at this point to mention those who are being commissioned today to the Stephen Ministry. In an intense training period, they have learned to see themselves as caregivers to people in need. They are people who seek to care but not, interestingly enough, to cure. They have been taught to live in the reality that since God saved Jesus’ life, he is the one who will save all our lives. They know they are only caregivers, and God is the cure giver. For those of you receiving the commissioning, you are today promising to bear a cross. You are promising to bear with and listen to people in their grief, in their sorrow, and in their pain. You are promising to lose yourself in service to God by serving others. I pray that God shows you his peace and joy along the path down which he has called you.

Following Jesus on the way of the cross is what we all do, whether we realize the import of our words or not, when we with Peter make the confession that Jesus is the Christ of God. It’s not a comfortable trip, but it is the trip to which God has called us and by which God will save us. Montgomery Evangelical Free Church, hear the good news of the Gospel: God raised Jesus from the dead; therefore we too will be raised if we lay down our lives in faith and obedience to the Christ of God.

Let us pray.

[The prayer included some of these thoughts] There are resentments here, some petty, some serious, that have broken relationships in your body. There are people here too caught up in themselves to realize that the glory and respect they desire is due only to Christ, who died for them that they might die to their pride. Break hearts, dear Lord, that you might mend them. Break silences, dear Lord, that you might heal wounds. Whatever is the reason for these problems, Holy Spirit, cause these people to lose their lives at this point so they may experience your reconciling power.

Clearing the way for a theology of relevance

2007-07-01T15:24:00.000-05:00

This post is a follow up to the previous post along with its resulting comments. I'm very happy that such a lively discussion developed, and I need to clear the ground before moving on to give a theological account of relevance.

1) So far, I have been sketching a non-theological, analytical argument about relevance. I, being a theologian, have not been able to keep theological language completely out, but I have attempted to do so.

2) Thanks to Travis' and Tim's comments, I realize that I need to make a distinction between objective and subjective relevance. Objectively, the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are relevant to each and every individual because their lives forever have been determined by the Person and Work of Christ. Subjectively, the claims of the Gospel are relevant only to those people who have the ability (read: have been given the ability) to see themselves as addressed by it. They have made themselves (read: have been made) relevant to the Gospel (they have been changed to see themselves as addressees) and in so doing, the Gospel "has become" subjectively what it always already is, something that matters.

3) Given this, subsuming subjective into objective relevance is something we should avoid for it makes us both less aware of ourselves and less aware of the other. As the Gospel becomes more subjectively relevant to us, it matters more to us; that is, as we come to see ourselves and our lives as being encompassed by this story, then we find that the story has more importance than we thought it did, and because we have been changed to fit the story, we are more open to seeing how the story (in Tim's words) might be shown to be relevant to the people around us. But, to show the Gospel's objective relevance is the same as making space for the change in the other individual that establishes the reciprocal, subjective relevance I was referencing in my last post.

Before moving to a sketched theological account, are there any other clarifications I need to make?

Relevance begins with you

2007-06-14T12:36:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago, I posted about two types of relativism, one that I consider truly humble and the other I consider to only have the appearance of humility. Inside that post there is some definition given to the word "relevance," that I would like to readdress and work out some implications for the way Christians lead 'relevant' lives, lives that really matter.

Point 1: "Relevance is a two-place predicate." This means that the sentence "That song is just so relevant" is actually not a sentence at all. Relevance is an idea that links two other ideas. Something cannot be just "relevant." That something must be relevant to something else.

Point 2: "Relevance is reciprocal." In other words, relevance is a two-way street. If A is relevant to B, then by definition B is relevant to A. The person I heard this from first (Professor James Hall in his Learning Company Philosophy of Religion course) used the analogy of a street. So, for example, if there is a road from Nashville to Franklin then there is also a road from Franklin to Nashville. If you cut off Nashville from Franklin, then you have also cut off Franklin from Nashville.

Now, that is about as far as I got in the last post. But, given these two points, I think there are some interesting implications that we need to deal with in relationship to the way we as Christians think about relevance.

Implication 1: There are three ways to establish relevance. 1) You can change A to make it relevant to B. 2) You can change B to make it relevant to A. 3) Or, you can change both A and B to make them relevant to one another.

With relevance, we are dealing with ideas, not roads. We can't just 'build a road' from A to B and leave A and B unchanged. If A and B are not already relevant then something must change in them in order to make them relevant to one another.

And, given our definitions, doing any of these three things will establish relevance both directions, for if A is relevant to B, then B is relevant to A.

Implication 2: If A is unchanging, then B must change in order to establish relevance, and vice versa. And, as we've already stated, if B changes to establish relevance with A, then A is relevant to B.

Now, I was raised with the battle cry, "The Gospel must be made relevant!" Let's do a little analysis. First, this is an incomplete sentence. Let's add the second predicate: "The Gospel must be made relevant to our culture," I think is what these people meant.

Now in order to establish relevance, one of three things can happen. 1) The Gospel can change to be made relevant to the culture. 2) The culture can change to be made relevant to the Gospel. 3) Or, both can change in order to be made relevant to one another.

Can we establish relevance through any of these procedures? Can we change the Gospel? Can we change our culture? I'm going to assume the answer is "No" to both of these questions. As we've seen in previous centuries, especially in Europe, the attempt to change the Gospel to be relevant to the culture ended in the pseudo-Gospel of classical Liberalism (there goes #1). As we've seen in the last century, we can't assert enough influence over even our own nation to change it to be relevant to the Gospel (there goes #2). If we can change neither of the predicates, then we can certainly not alter both in order to establish relevance (there goes #3). For us, this means that there is no direct way to establish relevance between the Gospel and our culture. We either need to make our goal smaller, or give up.

Since, I still think relevance is a good goal to shoot for, let's try a bit smaller: "The Gospel must be relevant to our communities." I think we're starting to get there with this statement. In our communities of faith, we can begin to see how the community might be changed in order to make them relevant to the Gospel (and thus establish relevance between the Gospel and the community). Norms of common life can be established that allow a community to see themselves as part of the Gospel story, that understand the language of sin and redemption, that reach out to others in the name of Jesus Christ. When communities change themselves to become relevant to the Gospel, the Gospel becomes relevant to them and through them may become relevant to people entering the doors.

But, that's still probably not enough. Any church leader can put structures in place that should, in theory, make a community relevant to the Gospel, but that leader will only be frustrated if the liturgy is perfect but the people aren't paying attention. So, one step smaller again: "The Gospel must be made relevant to you." Or, better, "You must be made relevant to the Gospel." Relevance begins with you. When you take the time to pray, for instance, you are probably doing more for the relevance of the Gospel to the world than any kind of hemhawing with systematic theology.

What does it look like to become relevant to the Gospel? It means that when you read Scripture, the words are ever becoming more relevant to you. Because the Scripture contains the apostolic witness to the Gospel, we must continually go back there to find the place where we might change. When biblical words like 'justice,' 'righteousness,' 'holiness,' 'sacrifice,' 'sin,' 'judgment,' and 'Jesus' become living realities to you, then you know you are becoming more and more relevant to the Gospel since, interestingly enough, the Gospel is becoming more and more relevant to you.

And, since you are a being made up of the world you live in and the communities you thrive in, when you become relevant to the Gospel, the Gospel reaches through you to become relevant to your community and to your world. Only you know what it means to be relevant to the Gospel in your 9-to-5 at Bank of America. As you grow (another metaphor for relevance) in the Gospel, the Gospel will become more and more relevant to Bob, June, and Julie down the hall. We can't make the Gospel relevant to anyone, but we can make ourselves relevant to the Gospel, and in so doing, we will find the Gospel doing its work in the places we live, eat, work, and play. Relevance begins (but certainly doesn't end) with you.

P.S. for my theologian friends: this is not ultimately a theological account because 'relevance' isn't a theological word. A theological account might look slightly different, with obviously more emphasis on the living work of the Spirit in the individual, community, and the world.
P.P.S. This account should continue back up through the individual to the community of faith to the world, but it's just a blog. Please don't hear me preaching an individualistic gospel of moral improvement!

TableTalk (an experience in fine theology)

2007-06-12T16:37:00.000-05:00

For this week's update, I want to share about TableTalk, a monthly, summertime group we're doing with Graduate Christian Fellowship.

The idea for the group came from reformer Martin Luther's Table Talk series, which are (I've been told) a series of books that are nothing more than notes taken on Luther's and his friends theological conversations around the table.

While we're not taking notes, GCF is having TableTalk about once a month during the summer where we get to sit, eat, drink, and imbibe some fine theology. Last month's topic was "Augustine and Pelagius Revisited: Free Will and Determinism in Christian Theology." Sound like too much? It might have been, but the atmosphere at the San Antonio Taco Company (where we're holding these) put us all at ease as we hashed out some of the basic issues in the classical debate over grace, sin, human nature, and free will. Much fun was had by all.

This Friday we're hosting our second TableTalk with the title, "What's God got to do with It?: The Incarnation through the Creeds to Chalcedon." We're going to cover the development of the idea of Jesus' humanity and divinity all the way through the fifth century of the church, spending a little bit of time on St. Athanasius' controversy with Arius and the implications of Chacledonian orthodoxy for the ways we tend to talk about Jesus today. Sound like too much? Well, if you're in town come Friday, come join us at SATCO on the porch at 4:00pm to find out. We'd love to have you join the conversation.

Christian "stuff"

2007-06-05T14:36:00.000-05:00

Having grown up in the heyday of American evangelicalism, I know all about Christian "stuff." You know what I'm talking about: the bookmarks and key chains and books and music and bubblegum. I used to ask my mom to let me stay in the Family Christian Store while she browsed the mall. You could get everything there, I mean everything!

Sometime while I was in college, things started to shift (or, perhaps more likely, I started to notice a shift) in regards to how Christian "stuff" was sold to us. The Prayer of Jabez was the first I really noticed. Not only was the book cute and hugely popular, but all of a sudden you could get all kinds of "stuff" to go with it: calendars, bookmarks, study guides, even Bibles! You could have Prayer of Jabez wall-hangings and refrigerator magnets, journals and stationary. No longer just Christian "stuff," there was some kind of shift towards branded "stuff." (I'm still kindof miffed that I've never seen a Mere Christianity Bible, but I bet I could find one if I looked hard enough).

All of that said, this shift in Christian marketing has made me wary of Christian "stuff," especially the stuff that goes on the wall and becomes nothing more than decoration. Consider this passage from Deuteronomy (11:18-21):

18"You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

Having gotten jaded to Christian stuff because it had become merely stuff, this passage reminds me that things like hanging Scripture on the wall can have a purpose: to teach us and our children to treasure the promises and commands of God. But, woe to those who hang God's Word on the wall merely to look at it or to mark themselves Christian over against the house down the street. Instead let us use them as tools to be reminded daily of God's saving acts on our behalf so that we might prosper in obedience along the way of the cross.

Humility and the Appearance of Humility

2007-05-29T11:22:00.000-05:00

I was doing some musing the other day about two types of 'relativism' in relationship to truth claims, one which is humble and one which merely has the appearance of humility.

One is the suggestion that what I think is "true for me." This can be used both offensively ("This is true for me and how dare you question it") and defensively ("That may be true for you, but this is true for me"). It's defensive use has the appearance of humility.

But, while it doesn't question another's experience, it also doesn't allow another's experience to touch its viewpoint at all. Relevance, I've been told by a philosopher, is a reciprocal term. That means that if A is relevant to B, then B is relevant to A. In this case, the person who dissembles with the "true for you" statement cuts off their interlocutor from the conversation by saying basically, "Your experience led you to that conclusion, but mine led me to this one. Your experience is irrelevant to what I believe!" In the end, though it seems humble, the "true for me, not for you" line is as dogmatically close-minded as the worst types of fundamentalism, except instead of a fundamentalism based on centuries of accumulation in a sacred text, this fundamentalism is based myopically on an individual's experience.

A silly illustration: Jane points at a cup and says, "That's red." Joe responds, "No, that's closer to salmon." Jane retorts, "It may be salmon to you, but it's red to me!" This may seem of no consequence in talking about a cup, but it becomes even more important when we're talking about God, society, politics, morals, and all the things that effect people every day.

There is a second type of 'relativism,' however, that I think is truly humble. Instead of saying, "This is true for me," it says "This is my best guess." Any "best guess" is going to be based in personal experience, but instead of being dogmatically closed to the experience of others, it is open and assumes that it is attempting to describe a Reality that will either validate or invalidate its claim. By being open to other's experiences, it learns to describe the reality better and better. "My best guess," at its best, is a refining process.

Back to the cup, Jane says, "That's red." Joe responds, "No, that's closer to salmon." Jane replies, "Oh, really? How can you tell the difference?" Instead of maintaining her 'right' to call the cup red, Jane enters into a larger 'reality' of color differentiation.

In this second form of 'relativism,' one holds one's ideas about the world tentatively, and allows them to be questioned both by others and the thing being observed. So, Jane allows her ascription of 'red' to the cup to be challenged and enters into something deeper than she started with. But, the cup itself will also govern the conversation. If the cup were actually green, then the whole conversation above is a farce. While in the first conversation, Jane seeks to push her will onto the cup and uphold her will over against Joe's description, in the second, she submits herself to the reality she finds in the cup through Joe's description. That is the proper ordering, and we would all (especially us believers) do well to remember that when we seek to describe the One who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Shrek the Third

2007-05-22T09:31:00.000-05:00

On Friday, a small group of GCF'ers went out to see Shrek the Third. This is the first in our summer GCF Trip to the Movies series. Other movies we're seeing this summer are Ocean's Thirteen, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and The Bourne Ultimatum. It's a summer of sequels!

As far as sequels go, the newest Shrek installment was a lot of fun. The jokes were jam-packed and replete with pop-culture references. When Shrek and Donkey go to a medieval high school to find Arthur Pendragon, everything is fair game. There's a cheerleading squad in dresses and tall hats using "thee's" and "thou's." Nerds get their heads dunked in chamber pots. Lancelot is head of the jousting team, and Guenevere is the coolest girl in the school. Shrek breaks into a school gathering right after a "Just Say Nay" speech has ended. There's all of that and a lot more in the mix, especially since Arther is the one who will take the throne of Far Far Away.

But that leads me to my gripe for the movie. It feels like I can't see a movie whose moral isn't "Be yourself." Shrek's be-your-self-ness dripped all around the film, especially when Shrek is trying to convince Arthur to take the throne. It seems like the movie exists in a moral universe in which the only good is sincerity and the only evil is insincerity.

But, of course, it doesn't. Prince Charming is full of hubris and is entirely sincere about it. On the other hand, Shrek's character develops as he grows out of being-for-himself into being for his wife and children. The latter is obviously the better path for the Christian (and humanity in general), yet that real gem of selflessness is hidden under the 'moral' that creates Prince Charmings in the first place.

Wrapping up the semester

2007-05-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

The semester is over, and the summer is beginning. I wanted to share the photos of our GCF End of the Year Party.

We're getting ready for the summer...more to come on that later. GCF is going to see Shrek the Third on Friday!

Profile: Matthew McMahon

2007-04-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

Matthew graduated from Vanderbilt in 2006.

1. Tell us about your life. Are you married? Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in the Hartford, CT area, the oldest of ten children. My father is a Pentecostal pastor, Christian school principal and music teacher, and my mother has been a teacher as well as full-time homemaker (emphasis on full-time!). My home church started a Christian school in our basement when I was starting second grade; the school added a grade level each year until I completed high school. (By that point, thankfully, we had a building!) I married my college sweetheart Carissa in 2002, before my second year of graduate school. We have two children, Bethany and Andrew, both born while I was completing my Ph. D.

2. Tell us about your education. Where, when, and in what have you done coursework?
My undergraduate work was done at Drew University in New Jersey, and of course I attended Vanderbilt for grad school. I majored in physics at Drew and achieved my doctorate in physics at Vanderbilt.

3. Tell us about your faith journey. How did you come to faith in Christ, and how has your faith been strengthened/challenged by your academic calling?
I was raised in the church, and am thankful to say that I can't remember a time when Christ was not a part of my life. I "asked Jesus into my heart" at five years old after listening to a Jimmy Swaggart tape for kids, famously telling my father that I was not going to bed that night until I had done so.

I found that my faith was challenged much more directly in undergrad than in grad school. This is partly due to the fact that we studied such virulently anti-Christian writers as Carl Sagan as part of a course on pseudoscience at Drew. It is also partly due to the fact that my graduate adviser is a religious man and encouraged me quite a bit in my faith during graduate school. While we would disagree on quite a few particulars of doctrine!, we had some basic metaphysical common ground. I would say that most of the faith-challenging features of the academic world came from sources outside Vanderbilt, in the wider scientific community, where philosophical materialism is rampant.

4. Tell us about your involvement with GCF. How has GCF encouraged you in both your faith and your calling?
GCF was a critical part of my spiritual life in graduate school. I became involved right from the start attending the Friday night meetings and attending a book study. I was greatly encouraged to find a community of serious Christian scholars who were unflinchingly committed to Christ and their education. It provided at once a place to think deeply about Christianity and a place to retreat from the pressure of grad school, especially in my first couple of years while I was taking a full courseload. It also provided a regular musical outlet, as I led the singing for those first couple of years.

5. If, based on your journey in faith and academia, you could tell the Church one thing, what would it be?
We must remember that Jesus did not come to save the smart; at the same time, we must remember that we are called to serve the Lord with all our minds.

Would you like to host a dessert?

2007-04-25T14:26:00.000-05:00

As I've already shared with you, I'm currently raising support for the 2007-2008 academic year. GCF's projected budget is $70,300. Currently, we've estimated $31,900 in committed support for the year, which means we're still trying to raise the remaining $38,400.

One of the ways we raise support for the Graduate Christian Fellowship is by hosting desserts in people's homes or churches. GCF provides coffee, cheesecake, toppings, cookies, and a presentation aimed to introduce people to the work GCF is doing at Vanderbilt. Generally, hosts help put together a guest list, follow-up on the invitations we send, and offer a few words both before and after the presentation. These can be wonderful times of fellowship and are a great way to introduce others to what God is doing among graduate students and faculty at Vanderbilt University.

If you'd like to host or are curious about hosting a dessert in your home or church anywhere in the continental US, please post a comment here or email me at jasoningalls@gmail.com. We want to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world-changers developed. Let's partner together to make it happen.

An action-packed week

2007-04-15T17:15:00.000-05:00

Graduate Christian Fellowship and I were really busy this past week! It went something like this:

Monday night: Graduate Christian Fellowship Fundraising Dessert--we raised $1200 toward next year's budget. Thank God!

Thursday morning: GCF Prayer Meeting on campus--it was our first, large prayer meeting, and we hope it will be a model for regular (bi-monthly or monthly) prayer meetings starting next semester. A student and her husband (I haven't asked their permission to publish their names) led the prayer time as a reflection on God as the source and giver of wisdom. We prayed with Scripture in hand for ourselves, for the campus, and for the world. Two pictures made it out of the event, and they're in this album on Facebook (There are also pictures of other GCF and InterVarsity events in that album).

Thursday afternoon: Office Hours at Panera Bread. I had a couple of students drop by, and we had a lot of fun.

Friday afternoon: Lecture and Lunch discussion. We took a group to hear the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson (Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire) speak at Benton Chapel on campus and then retired to Panera Bread to have lunch and discuss the talk. I might post more extensive comments on the talk in a later post, but I wanted to share some of the pictures that I took at the lecture and then at the lunch afterward.

Saturday night: GCF Game Night! We had dinner together and then played Pit, Go Fish, I Doubt It (think B.S.), and the Great Dalmuti. We got to meet new students and were joined by some friends from NW Arkansas. The pictures are hiding here.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to slowing down a little bit this week! Thanks for supporting GCF through praying and giving!