Monthly Archives: February 2010

Miracles Then and Now

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Craig Keener on miracles in the Gospels and today.

But theological questions about supernatural causation aside, the historical question as to whether many people believed that they witnessed people cured by Jesus is more easily answered. Even today, literally hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed events that they interpret as miracles. Why should we deny that first-century followers of Jesus’ ministry could have had analogous experiences, however we explain them? Most historical Jesus scholars today, regardless of their personal theological orientation, do accept that Jesus drew crowds who believed that he performed cures and exorcisms.

I’ve not experienced any healing in my life I’d call a miracle, but my parishioners have spoken to me of miraculous healings they’ve witnessed.  Their testimony has deepened my wonder and gratitude.

Poor Loser Plushenko

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Evgeni Plushenko was unhappy at losing the gold medal to Evan Lysacek in the men’s figure skating at the Vancouver Olympics.  He was a classic sore loser about it.

When Plushenko skated out for the medal ceremony, he shook the hand of bronze medalist Daisuke Takahashi of Japan, then hopped onto the podium — in the gold medal winner’s position. He then walked down to the silver level. The crowd let out a collective “oooooooo,” and the camera focused in on Plushenko’s face. He was not abashed. He was sending a message.

Plushenko won gold at the last Olympics and then retired.  He came out of retirement a few months ago, thinking he would easily reclaim the top of the podium.  When it didn’t happen, he got snarky about it.  Apparently all Russia thinks they’ve been robbed by the Americans on this.  The irony here is it was Russian cheating at a prior Olympics that led to the new scoring system Lysacek tailored his program to.  Under the old system, Plushenko would have won in Vancouver.  He’s mad now.  Honor, nationalism and ego at work.

In our home we’ve been amused at Plushenko’s silliness.  But to be honest, there are times when I too am disappointed not to stand on the gold medal podium.  I want to be the center of attention, but life reminds me I am not — or rather, I am one center among a multitude of centers.

Preaching Has Velocity

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My brain froze during Sunday’s sermon.  Or my brain derailed.  Or whatever metaphor fits.  I rehearse a sermon beforehand and then in worship preach mostly from memory.  I keep an outline at hand to check on as the message flows along.  But Sunday when I glanced at the outline toward the end, I got confused on where I was, and my thoughts came to an abrupt stop.

It took a few seconds for my brain to right itself again.  It seemed a lot longer, of course.  Then I doubled the error by calling attention to it:  “Sorry, lost my train of thought there.”  The lapse later amused my listeners.  “I’ve never seen you blank like that before.”  I was embarrassed but also, thankfully, able to laugh at my flaws.

The problem for a preacher when this happens is you lose momentum.  Momentum in physics is mass times velocity.  A sermon has mass, and preaching has velocity.  Once it stops abruptly like this, though, it’s difficult to overcome inertia and get moving again.  It’s much different than an intentional break for a sip of water.  It took a minute or two Sunday to regain speed.  Fortunately I recovered enough momentum by the time the sermon reached its final point, how emptiness can be an asset.  This I wanted to emphasize.

I felt like a figure skater who fell down on a triple axel.  You have to get up and skate on.  Everyone saw you go bump.  It won’t be the last time.

Jesus and the Spirit World

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Sermon preached on Feb 21, 2010

Luke 4.1-13 CEV
When Jesus returned from the Jordan River, the power of the Holy Spirit was with him, and the Spirit led him into the desert. For forty days Jesus was tested by the devil, and during that time he went without eating. When it was all over, he was hungry. The devil said to Jesus, “If you are God’s Son, tell this stone to turn into bread.”
Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say, `No one can live only on food.’ “
Then the devil led Jesus up to a high place and quickly showed him all the nations on earth. The devil said, “I will give all this power and glory to you. It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. Just worship me, and you can have it all.”
Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say:
`Worship the Lord your God
and serve only him!’ “
Finally, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and had him stand on top of the temple. The devil said, “If you are God’s Son, jump off. The Scriptures say:
`God will tell his angels
to take care of you.
They will catch you
in their arms,
and you will not hurt
your feet on the stones.’ “
Jesus answered, “The Scriptures also say, `Don’t try to test the Lord your God!’ “
After the devil had finished testing Jesus in every way possible, he left him for a while.

The Bible is a strange book. The people who wrote the Bible and lived in Bible times looked at the world differently than we do. One of the stranger aspects, and you see it in the New Testament, is that the Bible assumes there is a world of spirits beyond our material world. There is a spiritual world that influences us.

This spiritual world forms the background for our scripture tonight. Jesus is led by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, into the desert. There he will be tested by another spirit, called Diabolos, which is where we get our word diabolical. It’s the devil. And in that testing mention is made of a third class of spirits, angels. So you have a holy spirit, a diabolical spirit and angelic spirits… all inhabiting the world of spirits, a spiritual realm influencing our material reality.

This belief in a world of spirits is foreign to us, or at least to many of us. We are children of the Enlightenment… we are heirs of modern science. We in the Western world hold to an empirical worldview, often whether we know it or not. We trust what we can see and taste and touch. We trust our senses. We look for evidence. And we are suspicious of what is unseen, what is intangible.

We can be grateful for modern science and all its benefits. I am grateful in particular for modern medicine with its treatments and the way it saves lives. These are good things. But for some there is a philosophy behind it, a materialistic philosophy that says that matter is all that is… our material reality is all that exists. We need not subscribe to this philosophy. And actually our faith and our scripture tell us something different. Our faith tells us that matter, the material world, was created by God. Matter is good. And beyond it, there is a spiritual realm, what I am calling a world of spirits. It is also real. Actually, in many cultures around the world, this is how they view things. They don’t hold to our Western empirical worldview. They believe in a world of spirits. And when they come to Jesus, they are most concerned with whether Jesus is more powerful than the spirits that influence their life. They understand the temptation of Jesus.

I remember one day in my third semester of college calculus. I was sitting on the right side of the room. The professor was writing things on the board. Then he set the chalk down and offered us a little philosophical reflection. “We think in terms of three dimensions,” he said, “but mathematically speaking there can be many more dimensions than that. You simply add more variables to your equations. There could be three million dimensions, although we could only perceive a few of them.” Then he went back to the board. His comments blew my mind. I realized, perhaps for the first time, that reality was far more than I could perceive with my senses. There could be much more to reality. So when I come to the temptation story, with its spiritual realm, its world of spirits impacting Jesus, my response is, “Okay… this can be true. My calculus teacher told me so.”

So Jesus is out in the desert. He’s all alone. He’s facing a time of testing by diabolos. In the spirit world there are good spirits and bad spirits. Diabolos is the baddest of the bad spirits. It says Jesus was in the desert, and he didn’t eat for 40 days. I love where it says then, “and afterward, he was hungry.” I bet he was! Actually, we need not take the 40 days literally. It may just be Bible-speak for a long time. Jesus is out there a long time. We do take the 40 days literally in Lent though, and this is where that number comes from. The key thing to notice is that the testing comes after a very long time. In other words, the testing comes when Jesus is weak and vulnerable. The tempter knows and he waits. Diabolos doesn’t test Jesus after a day or two. He waits. He is like a virus that waits till Jesus’ immune system is suppressed, then he strikes.

And isn’t temptation the same with us? It not only comes at unexpected times. It also comes when we are weak and vulnerable, when our immune system is suppressed. The tempter knows us well… he knows our psychology, our experience. He waits till we are vulnerable. And the form of the testing is particular and peculiar to us. It is unique to us. Kathleen Norris tells of a conversation between a young monk and an older Abba in a desert monastery. “Abba, how do the demons fight against us.” A demon must be a junior bad spirit. The Abba replied, “The demons don’t fight against us as long as we are doing our own will. But when we try to do God’s will, then the struggle begins. Then the demons become our wills, and it is these we struggle with.” What a powerful insight! The demons become our wills. Anyone who has ever struggled with an addiction understands the dynamic here… they’re trying desperately to do what is right, but there is this spiritual force trying to push their wills off course. And even for us who have lesser struggles, even for us the fight is real. We try to do what is right, but there seems to be this force outside of us, from a spiritual realm, that seeks to push us toward what is wrong. And it doesn’t matter to me if you think of this world of spirits as symbolic and metaphorical. Okay, that’s fine. But the struggle is still there. The struggle is real. And if you are not struggling, you are not trying to do God’s will.

My wife’s car used to go out of alignment. The wheels on a car are in alignment when they are oriented properly to one another and to the ground. When the wheels are out of alignment, then there is a problem. You could tell when her car was out of alignment. It would want to veer off the road, like it had a mind of its own. You had to hold the steering wheel tightly to keep it going straight. The problem is fixed now, though. I want to use this idea of alignment as an analogy to understand the scripture. Diabolos wants Jesus to go out of alignment. He wants Jesus to veer off the road of God’s way. Jesus’ task is to stay in alignment, to stay in right relation to God, to other people and to his own calling. And just as a mechanic has tools to use to put a car in alignment, so Jesus uses tools to stay in alignment. I am going to mention two of his tools.

First, the obvious tool. It’s hard to miss. Jesus uses scripture. Each time there is a temptation, he has a scripture ready. It’s his protection. For an image, you might think of Jesus doing battle with Darth Vader, and scripture is his light saber. You can hear it go through the air… “Woom, woom.” Jesus use scripture for protection. We can too. This is why we place so much emphasis on scripture in church, in worship and education. Through sheer repetition, we want scripture to be written on our minds and hearts so that it will be there for is in our time of need. By the way… here’s a secret. One of the best ways to learn scripture is through song. Singing scripture songs writes the words of scripture on the heart.

Now for the second tool Jesus uses. It’s far less obvious. It’s easy to miss, and it might take some explaining. It’s emptiness. Jesus uses emptiness to stay in alignment. Think about where he is, out in the desert, a bleak empty landscape as far as you can see. Empty of human voices and human contact too. And the emptiness outside Jesus is mirrored by the emptiness inside him… his stomach is empty. He will not fill his stomach at the tempter’s suggestion. He won’t turn stones into bread. He wants to hang onto emptiness for now. Even more, he will pursue a life and lifestyle empty – empty – of power, prestige and security, which the other temptations pull him toward. He will be thoroughly empty of these things. And he holds onto his emptiness because he knows emptiness brings him a spiritual currency. Emptiness brings him spiritual currency. Only as he is empty can God fill him. Only in his powerlessness can God’s power flow through him.

Each week we have communion, and our communion preparers get it ready. One of the things they do is fill a chalice, like this one. It maybe ridiculously obvious, but they cannot fill a chalice unless it is already empty. If it were filled with sand, they couldn’t fill it. Only an empty vessel can be filled.

Some of you listening to me now are empty. You feel your emptiness. You carry it with you every day. There is an absence, a void, a longing. Something isn’t there that should be there. You live with your emptiness… it’s outside of you and on the inside, just like it was for Jesus. I want to tell you – don’t flee from the emptiness. Don’t try to fill it with something artificial. Let the emptiness be what it is. Because it is an asset for you. Yes, it makes you weak and vulnerable. But your emptiness is also an occasion, an opportunity, for a peace and a presence beyond yourself to come and fill you… fill you in a way that would not be possible apart from your emptiness. Nancy Spiegelberg said it well in a little prayer, “Lord, I crawled across the barrenness to you with my empty cup. I was uncertain even to ask for a drop of refreshment. If I had only known you better, I would have come to you… with a bucket.”

So at the end of the scripture, it says diabolos left Jesus… “for a while.” He’ll be back. The testing will continue. So it does for us. We know this is a lifelong struggle. And our task, always, as it was for Jesus, is to stay in alignment. We can use our tools to do this. Scripture can be our protection. And we can take our emptiness to God in prayer, asking God to fill us with a power, a peace and a presence beyond ourselves. Amen.

Strong Arms of Love

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Eternal God,
you are kind, just and full of compassion.
Let your ears be attentive to my voice today.
Listen to my cry for mercy.

The cords of death entangled me.
The anguish of the grave took hold of me.
I was overwhelmed by trouble and fear.
I slid down to the depths,
and I thought there was no one to help.
But then long arms reached down to me –
strong arms of love
pulled me up from the grave.
You let my eyes see the sky again,
and you set my feet firmly on the ground
that I may walk with you
and with those I love all my days.
Let my soul find rest in you once more, O God,
for you have been good to me.

How can I repay you
for your generosity?
What can I do or say to thank you
for the gift of life you give?
Make me mindful of how precious life is –
each week, each day, each hour.
Let every morning that meets my eyes find me more
humble, gentle, grateful and joyful.
Let every friend or stranger
read the truth in my face –
that in life and in death I belong to you
for I am held tightly
in arms of eternal love.

Lord I take up the cup of your saving love today,
and I drink it down to the bottom.

(after Psalm 116)

Embarrassed to be Myself

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Divine love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into strength, all deformity into beauty, all embarrassment into laughter.  The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

I am embarrassed of myself, embarrassed to be myself.  It has always been so with me, or at least as long as I can remember, and I do not know why.  I wish I were not embarrassed to be myself.   Other people appear confident and self-assured, but I am not.  I am like the sand that sifts out from the top of the hourglass. I am most happy when least aware of myself.

Fourteen years ago I spent a week at Ghost Ranch, a retreat center in the mountains of northern New Mexico.  I sat each day at a table and learned calligraphy.  Wholly absorbed in dipping my pen in the ink and making letters, I forgot myself for long stretches of time.  I was as unself-conscious as the Pedernal Mountain in the distance.  Embarrassment left me at Ghost Ranch, but it returned when I went home.  I still have blips of this unself-awareness in my ordinary life, when engaged in a creative art or staring at the beauty of nature.  If only I could carry that frame of mind with me always.

I am grateful today that Divine Love seeks to change me and turn all my embarrassment into laughter.  I hope in heaven Love will smile at me and make me laugh at my own silliness.

A Vast, Empty Expanse

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In the practice of contemplation, one comes eventually to embrace an apophatic anthropology, letting go of everything one might have imagined as constituting the self — one’s thoughts, one’s desires, all one’s compulsive needs.  Joined in the silence of prayer to a God beyond knowing, I no longer have to scramble to sustain a fragile ego, but discern instead the source and ground of my being in the fierce landscape of God alone.  One’s self is ever a tenuous thing, discovered only in relinquishment.  I recognize it finally as a vast, empty expanse opening out onto the incomparable desert of God.   ~ Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes looks like it will be a good book.  I tend to flee emptiness, but Lane sees it as an asset, a precursor to the spiritual life.

Less Commentary

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We have been watching the Olympics on television.  The winter games are High Holy Days in our home.  We both love figure skating.  My wife can tell you the names and histories of most skaters.  The pairs competition in particular appeals to me — it’s one of the few places where men and women compete together.  I like that.

When you see the games on TV, you don’t merely watch athletes.  You also listen to lots of commentary by sports journalists.  On the whole, the commentary for figure skating has been good.  Scott Hamilton and the other commentators know their sport well, and their words help us understand what’s happening on the ice.  Not all of the commentary is as good, though.  Watching the snowboarding competition, one announcer slipped into cliches like “The race isn’t over till you cross the finish line.”  At times, I wish they’d offer less commentary and let us watch in silence.  Fortunately, those occasions are rare.

The commentary at the Olympics makes me wonder, too, how much of my commentary on the passing scene is necessary.  Blogging is often an ongoing commentary of its own — bloggers like to opine on the news events of the day.  It can be a good discipline, though, to fall silent and let events roll by without feeling the urge to comment on them.  As if the world is in need of my opinion on its affairs!  Martin Laird in his book Into the Silent Land tells us to become like rocks in the riverbed that do not comment on what flows above them.  The rocks remain silent.  I can imagine this blog going silent someday.

My respect for silence, though, clashes with my love of writing.  I enjoy posting things here, and my parishioners appreciate this blog.  Writing is also a good spiritual discipline for me.  So I will continue, but perhaps with less commentary.

Lent and Laundry

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I teach a Bible study in our children’s program each Wednesday night.  My class this year includes three 5th grade girls.  They have a lot of energy, and we often seem at the brink of chaos, but we don’t plunge over the edge.  If our society harnessed the energy of children, we’d end our dependence on fossil fuels.

Needless to say, our discussions are interesting.  Last week this snippet of conversation took place:

Girl:  “Next week that thing starts when we give up something.  Right?”

Me:  “Yes, it’s called Lent.”

“I’m going to give up sugar cookies.  I love them.”

“Lots of people give up a special food.  You can also pray or perform acts of kindness for others.”

“Hmm…  Maybe I’ll give up wearing shorts instead.”

“It’s winter.  Do you wear shorts now?”

“No.

“You should give up sugar cookies.”

From there the discussion veered into the virtues of skinny jeans.  Later we worked on a puzzle completing lines from the Sermon on the Mount.  The girls love puzzles, but they’re a little fuzzy on Lenten disciplines.

As am I.  I’ve not settled on my Lenten discipline yet.  Options include giving up donuts, like the girl’s pledge on sugar cookies.  I could also help my wife more with laundry.  That would be the useful choice.  Problem is, these are things I ought to be doing anyway, not because of a season on the calendar.

A deeper problem, though, is that I just told you about my options.  This is what makes me uneasy with Lenten disciplines, how openly we speak of them.  Jesus warned against performing spiritual practices before others.  “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” he said.  Better to do them in secret.  When piety goes public, it loses its benefit.  After all, don’t you feel better about me now, knowing that I see a need to help my wife more with laundry?  Watch me make laundry a Lenten discipline.  I might even blog about it — like Julie wrote about Julia’s recipes.

It’s the same problem I see in downtown walks religious groups plan for Good Friday.  A cross leads the walkers, who stop from place to place to talk and pray over social ills. A picture of the walk will appear in Saturday’s paper.  As well intentioned as the walk is, it feels too attention seeking to me.  You might as well “sound a trumpet.”  Public piety — always a tricky thing.

Maybe I won’t observe any Lenten disciplines this year.  But each day I eat a donut, I could put a load of laundry in the washer.  That will make things even, I hope.

_____

ADDED:  A collection of Lenten posts at the CCblogs network here.

Hearing the Voice of Jesus

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The Voice That Makes All Things Clear
Luke 9.28-36
Sermon preached on February 14, 2010

Our scripture tonight is called the Transfiguration. It recounts the day Jesus was changed, transformed before the disciples. The traditional location for this is Mt. Tabor, between Nazareth and Galilee in northern Israel. The mountain rises about 2000 feet above sea level. Mt Tabor is the same today as it was in the time of Jesus – except for the parking lot, the rest rooms, the gift shop and the tour buses. Lots of tourists want to stand in the place where Jesus was transfigured.

Jesus often took time to get away, for prayer, renewal and communion with God. On a mountain or in the wilderness. This time he takes Peter, James and John with him. He wants to model for them the importance of prayer and spiritual contact with God. After a while, though, they just fall asleep. They can’t pray as long as Jesus. We can imagine them lying on their cloaks on the ground under a tree as he prays on.

When they wake, they notice immediately the scene is different. Jesus is no longer alone, and his appearance has changed. He shines like a great searchlight. The disciples don’t know how they knew, but they realize he is talking with Moses and Elijah, two figures from Israel’s history. Moses the lawgiver, and Elijah on of Israel’s great prophets. The disciples are stunned at first, and they listen to the three having their conversation. As Moses and Elijah move away to leave, Peter can’t resist the urge to speak, to say something. “Master,” he says. “It’s good that we disciples are here. We can build three shelters, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Luke the writer adds a little editorial comment: Peter didn’t know what he was saying.

Neither do we. Some think he was suggesting building shelters to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. Our children built one of those shelters in the Memoral garden last year. Others think Peter was just offering to put Moses and Elijah up for the night, like we might set someone up in the guest house out back. But Moses and Elijah are beyond the need for shelters anymore. What Peter says sounds silly, really. It was a gaffe. I imagine he regretted it the moment the words came out of his mouth. Maybe Moses and Elijah smiled at his innocence. Maybe the other disciples rolled their eyes. It won’t be the last time Peter says the wrong thing. But he’s confused. With the Transfiguration, his life has suddenly gotten more complicated.

+++++

Ash Wednesday is this week. It marks the beginning of Lent, a time of preparation for Easter. At the Ash Wednesday service in the evening, the Wesley Bell Choir will be performing a piece called “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” They’ve been working on it for weeks.

There are new ringers in the bell choir, and it’s interesting to see bell ringing through their eyes. Watching them, you realize how complicated it is. Having the right bells, and playing them at the right time. And there the music itself, little ink blots on a piece of paper. What do all these symbols mean? To someone new to bell ringing, it’s a complicated thing. At measure 40 of When I Survey there is an important key change. If you miss it, you will be playing a flat when you should have a natural. Music is complicated, any music.

I think that’s what happened to Peter on Mt. Tabor. Suddenly there was this enormous key change, and Peter found himself holding the wrong bell. He played the wrong note, and everyone knew it. I can’t really blame him, though. Any of us would have done the same.

So how is the music in your life lately? Is the music life is giving you simple or complicated to play? Is your music the same or different as it used to be? As I watch people in this congregation, they seem to be playing more complicated music than ever. In their work, in their family life, in their health, or all of the above. I see people struggling with difficult music – with sharps and flats and changes in rhythm and unexpected dissonances. It’s tough to keep up. The notes just come and come. It’s inevitable you will play the wrong note – say or do the wrong thing. And once the wrong sound is out there, you feel like everyone has heard your mistake, and you just want to hide.

Sometimes we do more than play the wrong note. Sometimes we flat fall down. Paul Wylie is an Olympic figure skater. At the 1988 winter games in Calgary he went out on the ice to do his long program. On is first jump, he realized something was wrong immediately. Then he felt his hand touch the ice, and his blade begin to slip. He realized, “I’m falling.” As he collapsed to the ice, he heard what sounded like a million voices groaning. He got up on his skates again and hustled on to the next move. But in his head the conversation was underway. “I still have four minutes to go. I can’t erase a fall. This is live… and I’ve blown it.”

And we blow it too. Whether we are beginners or advanced, young or old. We fall flat down. We feel exposed, like everyone is watching our mistake.

+++++

Peter must have felt everyone watching him after his faux pas about the shelters. But fortunately something happened to take the attention off him. A cloud enveloped the mountain. In the Bible a cloud is a symbol of God. The cloud was frightening to the disciples. Then a voice frightened them even more. “This is my chosen Son. Listen to him,” said the voice. We don’t know whether the voice was calm or frustrated. Then the cloud went away. Elijah and Moses were gone too. The disciples were left alone with Jesus. I think the voice came to help Peter and the other two disciples. Their life had suddenly grown more complicated. The voice helped to simplify things. They didn’t need at this point to say or do anything (like build shelters). They only need to listen to Jesus. That was their task right then. There would be time for doing and saying later. Right now, they only needed to listen.

+++++

So with us. When our life has grown too complicated, when we have hit the wrong notes, when we have fallen down, the one thing we can count on in those times is the voice of Jesus. At the end of the scripture, Jesus is still with the disciples. Jesus is still with us, and we can learn to listen for his voice too.

After Paul Wylie got up from his fall, he continued on with his program. But in his mind he was struggling. Why even go on? The negative thoughts multiplied. Then a scripture came into his mind. Psalm 37.24. “Though he stumble, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” This verse steadied his mind. He began to think about the matter from God’s perspective. He realized God could use success or failure to teach him. He said to himself as he skated, “I am imperfect, but I will skate for God’s glory, not my own score.” Paul Wylie came in 10th in those Olympics. In the ’92 games, he won a silver medal.

I believe the voice that came into Paul Wylie’s mind as he skated after his fall was the voice of Jesus. Scripture is one way the voice of Jesus can speak to us. This makes it all the more important that we know scripture, intimately, have it written on our hearts so it can help us in our time of need. It’s one way Jesus speaks to us.

A second way Jesus speaks to us is through spiritual mentors, people around us who have wisdom. Their wisdom on our life can become the voice of Jesus speaking to us. Jesus needed Moses and Elijah as his mentors, so we can seek out spiritual advisers in our own life. Jesus will speak through them to us.

A third way Jesus speaks to us is through our own emotions. In his writing on prayer and discernment, Gordon Smith says Jesus speaks to us through consolation, not desolation. If you have two choices before you, and one of them makes you feel desolate, but the other makes you feel hopeful, then that emotion is Jesus speaking to you. The voice of Jesus leads us to consolation, toward hope.

These are three ways the voice of Jesus speaks to me: scripture, mentors, emotions. However we hear the voice of Jesus, the effect on us is similar. The voice simplifies our complexities, it calms our troubled spirits, and it helps us chart a way forward. It is the voice that makes all things clear.

Marriage and Membership

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Church membership isn’t outdated.  It needs to be redefined, Rick Warren said during a conference at Saddleback Church.  Skye Jethani reports:

Using Scripture to show the importance of commitment to a local congregation, Warren said membership was about being “a member in the Body of Christ.” And therefore membership is “organic not organizational.”

Warren shot down the notion that membership isn’t important as long as people attend the church. “The difference between an attender and a member is the difference between living together and getting married.”

Warren’s comment reminded me how common cohabitation is among young couples now.  I wonder if ambivalence about marriage is linked to resistance to commitments in general, like joining a church.  In earlier generations, marriage and membership were the norm.  Not so much anymore.

Timothy Keller’s Robust Theology

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After giving readers an account of Christian faith, Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, urges them to live out their faith in a Christian community.  He is, however, aware of the dangers of church:

The church of Jesus Christ is therefore like an ocean.  It is enormous and diverse.  Like the ocean there are warm and clear spots and deadly cold spots, places you can enter easily without danger and places where it will immediately whisk you away and kill you.  ~ The Reason for God, p. 236

This man has a realistic view of the matter.  We must find the warm and clear spots. 

After Sunday worship, Keller remains in the sanctuary for a question and answer time.  The questions he has heard over the years inform and structure his book.  Is Christianity the one true religion?  How can a loving God allow suffering?  How can I know God exists?  Hasn’t science disproved religion?  Keller answers the questions with grace and humility. 

His answers surprised me a times.  On Christianity being the one true faith, he noted something I’d not considered:  to say every religion leads to God, as people do, implies a vantage point above them all, an understanding of each religion even they do not possess or profess — this superior stance breathes an arrogance as great as the supposed arrogance of believing one religion alone leads to God.  His insight on the atonement was similarly striking:  every act of forgiveness, he says, involves a kind of suffering and death in the forgiver.  God could not simply forgive without the cross. 

You may not always agree with his answers, but after a while you admire his clarity and force of argument.  I see in Timothy Keller a vigorous mind and a robust theology.

The Purpose of the Bible

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Two conversations about the Bible led Ryan Dueck to offer his perspective on scripture.

Do I “believe” in the Bible?  No, I don’t.  I believe in the God that the Bible points us toward.  I don’t feel compelled to use words like “inerrant,” “perspicacious,” “infallible,” or any of the other words adopted by well-meaning and pious folks to convince others (and themselves) that they believe strongly or rightly enough.  I believe God speaks through the Bible.  I believe the Bible is trustworthy and sufficient to accomplish the purposes God has intended it to accomplish. I don’t feel compelled to say more (or less) than that.

The Bible is not always an easy book to live with, but it is an important way in which God has chosen to make himself known and is to be honoured as such.  The church must continue to wrestle with how to read it, why to read it, and what reading it ought to lead to.  We must pass on an understanding of how to live with the Bible to the next generation that does not repeat the dead-ends that are such a familiar part of the contemporary landscape.

Read the whole post.  I tend to agree.  The Bible is trustworthy, and it’s not always an easy book to live with.  These sentiments express the tension well.

I belong to the school that says, “We believe in Jesus, so we trust the Bible.”  There are good reasons to affirm the historical reliability of the gospels.  Their testimony connects us in substance to Jesus, who attracts first our curiosity and then our faith.  Once that step is made, the portrait of Jesus there instructs us on how to approach the rest of scripture.  We trust the Old Testament because he affirmed it — he died with its words in his mouth.  We trust the New Testament because he commissioned disciples as his messengers, and the writings of the New Testament distill that message in its earliest form.  This way of framing the matter appeals to me:  if we believe in Jesus, we trust the Bible.

But Jesus didn’t model an uncritical acceptance of scripture.  He altered things.  He nullified the Levitical food laws, for example, a key part of Jewish identity.   The early Christians followed his example when they set aside circumcision, even though Genesis describes it as an “everlasting covenant.”  He reinterpreted Sabbath keeping.  Even more, Jesus’ claims about himself, confirmed in the resurrection, forced a radical reappraisal of Old Testament monotheism.  Approaching the New Testament can be similarly complicated.  The gospels portray Jesus’ messengers as human and fallible.  They stumbled along like the rest of us.  We trust their testimony on central issues, but we need not uncritically accept every word they say, particularly on secondary things.  When they teach the sufficiency of Christ or the necessity of love, there we are on safe ground.

Martin Luther said the Bible is a manger in which we find the Christ child.  He grew up to be the Savior of the world (Jn 4.42).  When the Bible brings us to the Savior, it fulfills its purpose.

Martial Arts Jesus

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Pastor Mack looks at churches that feature mixed martial arts as a way to attract young men to the gospel:

But it shouldn’t be troubling that aggressive young men look to see in Jesus a little of themselves.  We all do.  This is what each and every quest for the historical Jesus has taught us (noticed in the first ‘Quest’ by Schweitzer) – when we search for the “real” Jesus, we tend to see ourselves – whether liberal or conservative, American or African, gentle or aggressive.  And certainly these young men are right to see that Jesus has been domesticated.  For most American Protestants, he’s a mild looking Caucasian with untainted robes, who hardly looks like someone who could or would fast for 40 days, chase moneychangers out of a temple with a whip, or endure torture and death for love’s sake.  Is Jesus an MMA fighter? No.  But he’s not a seminary professor, an artist, a writer, a salesman, or a blogger, either.

Read the whole post.  Mack isn’t unaware of the dangers of this practice, but on the whole he believes the gospel needs to speak in the “language of the lost.”  He’s right there.  I don’t know how to sort out Jesus and the cage fighters, but the gospels suggest to me he’d be more comfortable having a beer with them than sitting down at supper with writers, pastors and professors.

Pillar to Altar

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Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’  So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first…

Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.  (Gen 28.16-19; 35.6-7 NRSV)

God appeared to Jacob at Bethel as a young man setting out in life.  Jacob returned to the place twenty years later, older and wiser.  As I imagine the scene, the original pillar was still standing when he returned to Bethel, and he took its stones apart and incorporated them into a new altar.

Jacob’s return to Bethel makes me think of sacred places and times in life.

Davis Creek Park sits in the foothills of the Sierras, midway between Carson City and Reno.  As a young man, I often drove there, set myself down at a picnic table and read the Bible.  I have an old Bible with wrinkled pages at 2 Timothy because it was raining lightly at Davis Creek Park that day.  This park is a Bethel to me, a place where God appeared to me in the beauty of nature and in the practice of reading holy scripture — two of the ways God is indirectly present to us, according to Simone Weil.  I knew nothing of Weil then, of course.  I only knew that God became real to me as a young man in northern Nevada, and one of the key places this happened was Davis Creek Park.  I’ll return there someday.

I watch religious people fleeing from their past, a religious upbringing they regard as harmful.  It’s as if they return to Bethel, topple the pillar and scatter its stones in all directions.  But for all its flaws, wasn’t the experience of God then genuine?  Where there not fragments of authenticity to it?  It’s more challenging, and more useful in the long term, to take those stones and build them into a new altar, as Jacob did, a new place to worship and seek God.

It’s important also to seek out new Bethels.  I cannot live in the past as I was twenty or thirty years ago.  So the Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly says the key to an authentic spiritual life is “continuously renewed immediacy” rather than “a memory of the divine touch.”  True.

Spirituality for the Rest of Us

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Spirituality for the Rest of Us
Isaiah 6.1-8
Sermon preached on February 7, 2010

King Uzziah died of leprosy in 742 BC. His kingdom, Judah, was in a time of stability. There were troubles on the horizon, but it was peace and prosperity now. The throne passed peacefully to his son Jotham. There was a coronation ceremony at the temple that Solomon had built centuries earlier. Crowds swelled Jerusalem for the event. There was a sense of excitement and hopefulness in the air, much like when we inaugurate a new president in Washington.

Among the dignitaries was a young man named Isaiah. He was from a noble family in Jerusalem – they had means and connections. He had a ticket to the coronation ceremony. We can imagine him standing there in the temple courts, wearing a white festive robe and his best sandals, standing on tiptoe to see the new king Jotham.

During the ceremony something happened to Isaiah. He had a mystical experience. He had a vision of God. He saw God seated on a throne, high and exalted. The train of God’s robe filled the temple. Angels were around God, and they called to one another, “Quadosh, quadosh, quadosh… holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah was stunned and silent. Others were watching the young king Jotham, but Isaiah saw the real king, the great king, God almighty. Once Isaiah recovered his ability to speak, he said simply, “Woe is me. Woe is me.” The presence of God overwhelmed him.

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Have you had an experience like this? You’re sitting in the stands during a graduation ceremony. The graduates go up to receive their diplomas. But for you suddenly the sky opens up, and you see the glory of God, brighter than a thousand suns, and it blinds you. Has that happened to you? If you’re like me, probably not. This is an experience for saints, mystics and prophets like Isaiah. Our ordinary experience is different.

Some of you have shared mystical experiences with me. You saw a vision or your heard a voice. I don’t doubt that happens. Sometimes the curtain parts, and we see beyond it. But for most of us, it’s not part of our ordinary experience. We need a faith that doesn’t depend on them… a spirituality for the rest of us who are not saints, mystics and prophets.

I’m going to say something now that makes me nervous. I actually laid awake at night this week wondering, “What will they think if I say this in a sermon?” It’s different… it’s the opposite of what we usually say in church. But here it is. I believe our ordinary experience is of the absence of God, not the presence of God. We live our lives in the absence of God. This is normal. This is how it should be.

Philosopher Robert Sokolowski said it this way, “God as God does not appear in the world or in human experience. God is not the kind of being who can appear as a thing in the world… we approach God as one who is always absent to us while we are in our current state.”

This is basic theology. God made the universe, and God is not the universe. The act of creation included a withdrawal on God’s part… God pulled back, so to speak, to allow the creation a space to be. What is immediately present to us is the universe itself – that tree, that rock, this brick, that person… and none of them are God. Compared to them, God is absent to us. This is normal. I’m not saying we are abandoned. It’s not the same. I’m only saying there is a distinction between the creation and the creator, and what is immediately present to us is the creation itself. God is behind and beyond it.

Now there are benefits to the absence of God in our lives. Actually, if we faced the presence of God in its full intensity, we’d be annihilated. The absence of God keeps us alive. Grasping God’s absence also relieves us of the pressure of having to force a certain experience… “If I try really hard, maybe God will be present to me like he is for so-and-so.” We don’t have to do that if we realize our ordinary experience is the absence of God. There’s nothing abnormal about it. Even more, a sense of God’s absence connects us to people who are not religious, who don’t get spirituality at all… they live in the absence of God each day, just as we do. So we have kinship with them.

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I’ll have more to say about this, but let’s go back now to Isaiah. We left him in a trance in the temple. He is staring at his vision. He is trembling. People were beginning to look at him and whisper among themselves.

As I read the scripture, three things happen to Isaiah as a result of his vision. First, he is confronted by the awesome majesty and holiness of God, which has the effect of instantly reordering his life and priorities, as it would for us. Second, he is cleansed from his sin and shortsightedness. God’s holiness reminds him of his sin, but then the angel takes a coal from the altar to remind Isaiah about the sacrifice that brings him forgiveness and cleanses him. Third, he is commissioned for a new work. The voice says, “Who will go for us.” And Isaiah says, “Here I am, send me.” He will become a prophet, the prophet in Israel. Isaiah will address idolatry and social injustice, and he will call people to a new faith in God.

After he dies, his words will be collected, and Isaiah’s writings will become the foundation of Hebrew literature. You can go to Jerusalem today and visit the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed, and in the center there is a large display, the focal point of the exhibit, and it is Isaiah’s writings. He will become that important. But it all starts when he is a young man in the temple, and he has a vision of God, a mystical experience of God’s presence.

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Earlier I spoke about our normal experience of the absence of God. Now I want to qualify this and say that God is also present to us in certain ways. God is absent and present.

If I were in the pews listening, I’d be thinking now, “Wait… how can God be absent and present? How is this possible?” Well I know it’s possible… quantum physics tells me so. In quantum physics they study subatomic particles with funny names. They’ve done experiments that show that a particle can be there and not be there at the same instant… it can be present and absent simultaneously. This tells me that physical reality at its basic level is not simple… it’s complicated and paradoxical. How much more then is the reality of God in our lives complicated and paradoxical. God can be absent to us and present to us, the key is that it’s an indirect present. God is indirectly present.

Let’s move away now from quantum physics to something more everyday. Say you know a family in need. They’re going through a crisis. You decide to help out by fixing them dinner. You know they’d do the same for you. So you go to the store and buy the ingredients, and then you go home and fix your standard tuna noodle casserole for them. You’ve called ahead to make sure they’ll like it. You fix other dishes too, including something resembling a vegetable because you want the meal to be healthy. You take the meal to their house and ring the bell. You go inside and deliver the meal. You talk with them for a bit, and then you get back in your car and leave. So here’s the question… when that family sits down for dinner in a few minutes, are you absent or present? Well, you are absent to them… you’re not at the table. But you are also indirectly present through the meal your own hands have touched and prepared. The meal makes you present to them indirectly.

This is how I think about the indirect presence of God. And for this I am indebted to the French writer Simone Weil. In her essay on the Forms of the Implicit Love of God, she wrote about God’s ordinary absence from us, but she also said God is indirectly present to us in three ways: through the beauty of the universe, through acts of mercy and compassion, and through religious practices. When we pay attention to these things and give ourselves to them, we encounter God’s indirect presence and we are changed. Think of them as three dishes in the meal God has prepared for us… they make God indirectly present to us.

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So here is where a spirituality for the rest of us comes in. Most of us are not saints, mystics or prophets. We are not likely to have dramatic visions of God as Isaiah did. But if we pay attention to God’s indirect presence in the beauty of nature, in acts of mercy, and in religious practices like prayer and worship, then the same thing that happened to Isaiah will happen to us, only it will happen more slowly. We will be confronted by a reality beyond ourselves, which will reorder our life and priorities.  We will be cleansed of our sin and shortsightedness.  And we will be commissioned for a new work, a way of life set out for us by the creator of the universe. Amen.

Rainbow Arch Bridge

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The Merrick Street Bridge is my favorite bridge in Adrian, especially when snow rests on the rainbow arch.  It was built in 1926 and rebuilt about ten years ago.  Learn more about the bridge here.

The bridge spans the River Raisin, also pretty this time of year:

Snowfall this year, as you can see, has been mild.  Some people want to see more snow, but I’m happy with what has fallen.

ADDED:  A foot of snow fell three days after I took these pictures, making the snow lovers in my life happy.  Fortunately it was light stuff, easy to shovel.

The Ax Comes Out

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Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  ~ Mt 3.9-10

His years living with God in the desert gave John the Baptist a clarity of vision.  Ancestry and history meant nothing to him.  All that mattered was the fruitfulness of a life lived in the sight of God.  Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God, as an earlier prophet said.

Churches face the same problem.  We are children of John Wesley, they say, or John Calvin, or whoever the ancestor is.  Their heritage defines and consumes them.   They become merely a historical society, a service club, or a social gathering.  They cease to bear fruit — faith, humility, charity, reticence and works of mercy. Their theology atrophies, and they lose the capacity to reproduce themselves in new believers.  They no longer appeal to people hungry for God.

Then the ax comes out because God looks for fruit.  It’s happening right now to a lot of churches.

A Striking Insight About Youth Ministry

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Formerly a youth minister, Kate Murphy is now a solo pastor in a Presbyterian congregation.  Her latest experiences make her wonder about the wisdom of youth ministry programs that segregate youth from the rest of the congregation:

I’ve always met young Christians through youth programs. I’ve been hired by churches so committed to the discipleship of their young people that they’ve dedicated resources to creating specialized curriculae and activities. These churches expect regular events that are created exclusively to minister to young people.

But I wonder now if we’re ministering them right out of the church. Unlike Jonathan, the kids I’ve previously pastored never sat around a table with adults at church-wide fellowship events—they had their own program options. They’ve never worked side by side with other members to put on a neighborhood vacation Bible school—they were off on their own mission trips…

I may have been unintentionally disconnecting kids from the larger body of Christ. The young people at my current congregation—a church that many families would never join because “it doesn’t have anything for youth”—are far more likely to remain connected to the faith and become active church members as adults, because that’s what they already are and always have been.

She mentions Jonathan, a sophomore in her church, who impresses her with his faith, maturity, and ease of interaction with adults.

I’d not thought of the problem she poses, that youth programs can short-circuit youth involvement in a congregation and the world of adults, making it less likely for them to be connected to a congregation when they grow older.  It must be hard for her to question youth ministry in this way. 

I think youth benefit from their own groups and activities.  In our congregation, caring adults organize programs for youth.  But they also work hard to integrate the young people into the larger life of the congregation — ushering on Sunday morning, assisting in VBS, leading an Ash Wednesday service, and singing in the praise band.  My experience as a teen in church included both — Sunday worship in church and regular youth events.  Both were important to my faith development. 

I’m not good at leading youth ministry.  I don’t have the right personality or gifts for it.  I’m better with youth one-on-one or in very small groups.  I lead a Bible study for 5th grade girls each Wednesday evening.  I love these girls and enjoy spending time with them.  We’re always on the edge of chaos but still learn about faith and the Bible along the way.

Kate Murphy believes her small congregation, though not appealing to families looking for youth programs, will benefit its young people more than big churches with fancy youth ministries.  This is a striking insight from a former youth minister — it flows against the current of conventional wisdom.

Pastoral Care Rationing

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After 15 years in pastoral ministry, I’ve begun to use the r-word.  I see a need to ration myself.  I have only limited energy for pastoral care.  Especially as an introvert, my tanks will run low.

I felt it earlier this week.  Each day brought its own focus:  delivering Meals on Wheels, preparing dinner for a family of six and taking it to them, visiting a parishioner at an out of town care facility, and attending to the regular pastoral care needs of the congregation.  I didn’t realize how low the reserves were until an unexpected need arose, and I found myself sucking on a dry tank.

There are far more needs in the congregation than I can care for.  I see people on Sundays, and I know there are critical things going on in their lives.  But I have to pick a few to focus on.  I’m not the only one caring for parishioners.  There is another pastor, and there are the church members themselves.  The priesthood of all believers is alive and well here.  I’m always impressed with how parishioners become priests to one another in times of crisis.

The word husband, in addition to being a noun, is a little used verb meaning “to manage prudently and economically.”  As a pastor I must husband my own energies.  When I attend to the needs of parishioners, energy seeps out of me.  I become like Jesus in the crowd that day… someone touched his cloak, and he knew that power had gone out of him.  Power goes out of me, and there is only so much of it.  It’s like a cell phone battery that will need to be recharged.

It’s not only taking care of needs.  It’s also being aware of them.  He has just lost his wife.  She lives alone.  She has cancer.  He worries about his wife’s illness.  I carry these concerns around with me, and when too many of them accumulate, the sadness and anxiety linger.  The need for self-care marks anyone in a helping profession.  Fatigue sets in.  I’m only more aware of it than ever lately.  Maybe it’s a function too of how much I love my congregation.  They are precious to me, and when they hurt I live with the hurting too.

So I’m thinking about pastoral care rationing today.  I must ration myself.  I’ve probably been doing it all along, but I’ve not named it before like this.