Straight-Friendly

Authority and Accountability

2012-01-28T18:17:00.004-06:00

They were all amazed, and kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” (Mark 1.27)

Shameful—or Shameless?

Hull House, Chicago’s legendary haven of social progress, closed its doors on Friday. Rumors that financial duress might shut down the landmark, co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, have been floating for a while. Those who cared about its survival waited for a big push to keep it alive. None came. Instead, Hull House just ceased to be. No one could explain how it could suffer such an ignoble fate. Who dropped the ball? Less than a mile away, the same question arose in our city morgue, backlogged with indigent corpses denied burial because of flagrant mismanagement. While Chicagoans grappled with these abominable situations, two states over—at the University of Michigan—President Obama cited poor administration as the chief reason why spiraling education costs now generate more personal debt than credit cards. The rudeness of these realities struck very real nerves in a society already scraped raw by the widening gap between haves and have-nots. We’re hard-pressed to hold someone accountable for these and other misdeeds, even though identifying villains at this late date won’t undo the harms afflicting us.

The ruder reality we won’t face is this: accountability rests with us. Our neglect permitted these problems to reach crisis level. Contentment to authorize self-serving and incompetent officials is what got us here. And we’re so far beyond fixing the system it’s time we own up to the rudest reality of all. If we don’t change our laissez-faire attitude about the least among us, sorely needed change for the benefit of all is a lifeless dream. Systemic failures on every front attest to the shameful—or is it shameless?—apathy of everyone in the system. None of us is without blame. And Sunday’s readings (Deuteronomy 18.15-20; Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8.1-13, and Mark 1.21-28) come along just in time to re-teach us what accountability means and how authority works.

The Delicate Balance

Stepping through the texts, we see sharp indicators of malaise—all of them wanting for greater care and courage. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses prepares Israel to move forward in his absence, telling them to anticipate a new prophet whose authority will be evidenced by his credibility. Moses quotes God directly in verses 19 and 20, warning, “Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in My name, I Myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in My name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.” Psalm 111 goes one step further, tying credibility to performance: “The works of God’s hands are faithful and just; all God’s precepts are trustworthy.” (v7) But the psalmist also shifts the focus back to us. In verse 10, we read, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.” Knowing what’s right requires us to do what’s right in a specific way. Proof we heed Christ’s teachings is found in thoughtful care we take to live out Christ’s principles.

This idea reemerges in 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul invokes the doctrine of uniform priesthood, which authorizes every believer to speak God’s Word and vests us with responsibility to demonstrate God’s precepts in action. Addressing an Early Church controversy about diet (explored in an earlier post, Watch What You Eat), Paul calls us to balance Christian authority to overturn Mosaic Law with accountability for how we exercise our freedom. If rightful taking of faith’s liberty causes others to doubt, Paul says we’re doing it wrong. It’s not about what God’s grace allows us to do, but the grace we exemplify in doing it. Relief in knowing Christ freed us from arcane Old Testament edicts doesn’t relieve our duty to act responsibly for the sake of those who’ve not accepted freedoms we enjoy. The delicate balance between authority and accountability becomes the focal point in Sunday’s Gospel, where Jesus models how both are handled.

In the Raw

The curtain rises on Capernaum, a progressive community that welcomes Jesus. It’s the Sabbath. He enters the synagogue and Mark 1.22 says the people are “astounded at His teaching, for He taught them as One having authority, and not as the scribes.” Jesus’s unorthodox approach sidesteps traditional methods of breaking down religious legalese in order to reveal divine principles in the raw. His manner conveys godly authority, and the congregants respond in keeping with Deuteronomy 18 and Psalm 111’s expectations. When the truth of Christ’s message resonates with them, they accept it. Then something unexpected occurs to ratify their trust.

A man tormented by an unclean spirit bolts out of the crowd, howling, “What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know Who You are, the Holy One of God.” (v24) Before observing Jesus’s response, we note four key details. The man’s presence speaks to the congregation’s openness. Most synagogues would ban him—and be legally and politically correct in doing so. But the Capernaum faith community opens its arms to him. Second, for his sake, it also overlooks the edict prohibiting work on the Sabbath; opposition Jesus encounters elsewhere when working miracles on the Lord’s Day isn’t raised in Capernaum. Third, the raw force of Christ’s message vexes harmful impulses holding the man captive. They hear threats, not hope, and instantly become confrontational. Finally, the man’s cry rings out in two voices: one of fear and resistance, spoken in schizophrenic plurality (“us”), and another that confesses faith and wholeness (“I know Who You are”).

Jesus immediately shuts the paranoid delusions down. “Be silent, and come out of him!” He commands. (v25) They don’t go quietly; Mark reports the man is seized with convulsions before they depart. But the melodramatic tantrum is no match for Christ’s power. Jesus’s accountability for the man’s welfare—despite his condition labeling him “undesirable”—reaffirms His authority to speak truth to power. Verse 27 reads, “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.’” We have to love that Jesus doesn’t exploit the chance to show off. He doesn’t make a case for ignoring Sabbath traditions to justify His actions. He doesn’t question the man’s right to be there. He doesn’t turn to the crowd and say, “Watch this.” He simply speaks the truth God gives Him and then acts on it. And the people are amazed.

“Why Should I Be Bound?”

Taking authority over the world’s evils—including those that seek to torment us—demands taking responsibility for the least among us. Arguing legalities and logic with those they hold captive only proves we’re not yet free to speak truth to power. Sure, it’s awfully convenient to shut out undesirables who disrupt our lives with foul thoughts and attitudes. Yet if we keep them away, how will they find help? And how will our witness prove true? Freedom in Christ doesn’t give us the right to show off. It entitles us to lift those enslaved by fear and doubt out of captivity. Today’s Gospel teaches freedom is a privilege best served by setting people free. It authorizes us by expanding our accountability beyond what’s best for us, so others may experience liberating faith and wholeness.

“The fear of the LORD” that Psalm 111 mentions is nothing to be afraid of. It’s the canny understanding that we’ve received the raw truth of the Gospel, and with it the raw power of freedom in Christ. A late friend and songwriter put it like this: “Why should I be bound, when Christ has set me free?” That’s the burning question at the bottom of our moral and political decay. Not, “Who dropped the ball?” But, “Why aren’t we changing the game?”

Teach us, O God, to weigh the delicate balance of embracing Christian authority and accountability for our deeds. Stir in us authentic passion to exercise faith’s freedoms by setting people free. Grant us audacity not only to speak truth to power, but also to act on it. Amen.

We've been given authority over evil in order to lift those enslaved by fear and doubt. Through Christ, we have the power to change the game.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/28/authority-and-accountability/

Dispensing with Approval

2012-01-21T23:19:00.005-06:00

As He went a little farther, He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1.19-20)

Over the Moon

If you’re a devotee of American musicals, you know the pivotal number the instant you hear it. It’s the ebullient reckoning, the bone-rattling tune that bursts out of nowhere when the lead character—or sometimes the entire cast—figures out things are about to change. In West Side Story, Tony sings, “Something’s coming. I don’t know what it is, but it is gonna be great.” In Sweet Charity, Charity lets loose with, “There’s gotta be something better than this.” In Rent, the performance artist, Maureen, invites the cast to welcome change as they sing, “Only thing to do is jump over the moon.”

To a one, Sunday’s readings seem poised for a pivotal number. In Jonah, God is primed to destroy Nineveh; but seeing the city’s repentance turns God around. In Psalm 62, the poet reminds us there’s no benefit in trusting human promises, realizing “power belongs to God.” (v11) In 1 Corinthians 7.29-31, Paul concludes, “the present form of this world is passing away.” Don’t hang on to anything, he writes—not spouses, sorrows, joys, possessions, or businesses—because there’s no time dawdle on things that may not survive the change. Wow. That’s Paul at his most overwrought, drama-queen finest, spoken with all the conviction of a man without notable family or business ties. We’re fine with turning him down a few notches--until we open Sunday’s Gospel, Mark1.14-20, where see what Paul describes in theory play out—not once, but twice.

Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee, spots two sibling fishermen, Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. “Follow Me and I will make you fish for people,” He says. Without hesitation, they quit and follow Him. Maybe they hate their jobs so much that anything would be better. Maybe they sense something’s coming. Scripture doesn’t say why they drop everything and sign on with Jesus. They obviously have no idea Who He is. He’s not from around there, isn’t a fisherman, and has no following of any kind. (They’ll be His first disciples.) Yet something compels them to leave what they know to “fish for people” (whatever that means). And we could write off them as kooks, except the scene repeats within minutes, when Jesus spots another set of brothers, James and John. Mark doesn’t even bother quoting Jesus’s offer this time around. They drop their nets—leaving their father and the family business behind—to go with Jesus. “Leap of fate,” Maureen sings in Rent, “only thing to do is jump over the moon.” Which is one way to describe what Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John do. They jump over the moon.

What’s the Point?

If Sunday’s drop-everything passages make you queasy, get in line. I confess to high levels of discomfort with texts that equate following Christ with severing all ties to family and livelihood. I also admit to being highly suspicious of those who advocate the sorts of whimsical moon jumping we witness in the texts, because more often than not, people who get all fired up about such dramatic turnarounds just so happen to be in the people-fishing business. Radical conversions keep them fed. Finally, I have a hard time squaring a God Who insists we sacrifice everything with One Who uses total loss to demonstrate divine love and power to restore what’s lost.

For those of us who struggle with the all-or-nothing terms in Sunday’s Gospel, there’s something else we might want to consider. Reading further along, we discover the disciples really don’t leave everything behind. They hang onto their boats and nets throughout their time with Jesus, keeping His ministry afloat with supplementary income. They stay in touch with their families, some of whom eventually join Jesus’s band of followers. So it turns out this moment may not be as dramatic as the abandon-everything romantics like to paint it. It may not deserve a big number like “Something’s Coming” or “There’s Gotta Be Something Better than This” or “Over the Moon”. It may be as simple as trying a new thing to see how it works out. And if that’s all we’re looking at, what’s the point?

Opportunity to Be Changed

Often what Scripture doesn’t say distinguishes it from run-of-the-mill self-help manuals and cautionary fables that come prepackaged with explanations. Its sketchiness becomes its most illuminating strength, as it draws us into the narratives, where we discover truth in absentia. So we ask what’s missing from this story? What don’t the newly minted disciples do that you or I wouldn’t conceive of neglecting before we quit our jobs and left our families to follow a Stranger we’ve never met?

They dispense with approval. Simon and Andrew don’t ask for a few minutes to discuss the proposition. They don’t pause to puzzle out how discipleship will impact their family and business. James and John don’t turn to Zebedee and say, “Hey, Dad, what do you think?” Jesus says, “Follow Me,” and they do it. We can’t imagine anyone who watches them drop their nets and head off with Christ possibly feeling at ease. We can hear Zebedee, other family members, and business partners call after them, “What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going? You don’t know this Guy!” The disciples don’t know what they’re doing. They have no clue where Jesus is leading them. But this they know: Christ’s voice calls to them and passing their opportunity to be changed for life because others don’t approve is a sacrifice they can’t afford to make. Immediately leaving their nets liberates them from inhibitions tangled up with seeking approval. When they return to their families and livelihoods, they are better, more productive, and freer for having followed Jesus without hesitation.

Dispensing with approval is the first step in discipleship. And for those of us who don’t see that in the disciples, Paul comes right out with it in 1 Corinthians. “From now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none," he writes, "and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” Something's coming. African-American slaves, whose very lives depended on their captors’ approval, put it like this: “My heart is fixed, my mind’s made up. Nobody’s gonna turn me around.” Following Jesus is a matter of saying yes to His call and letting go anyone or anything that might discourage us or disapprove of our decision. Drop your nets. Quit the boat. Follow the Keeper of your heart. Don’t sacrifice your opportunity to be changed for life. Jump over the moon.

Jesus, we hear You call us to follow You. We’re not always sure where You come from or what “fishing for people” means. But Your voice calls to a place in us where none but You can reach. Quicken us to dispense with our need for approval. May we drop our nets, knowing we’ll return to what we’ve left better, more productive, and freer than we’d ever be by remaining behind. Amen.

Dispensing with approval frees us to follow Christ; passing the opportunity to be changed for life is a sacrifice we can’t afford to make.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/22/dispensing-with-approval/

Because You Are Precious

2012-01-17T15:51:00.007-06:00

I have called you by My name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Because you are precious in My sight, and honored, and I love you. (Isaiah 43.1-2,4)

Deep Trouble

Little Shop of Horrors—the 1960 sci-fi classic later remade as a musical—is the parable of a nerdy florist who stumbles on an exotic plant and decides to nurture it. Though he does everything he can to keep it healthy, it shrivels up and nearly dies. Because it’s not a plant. It’s an alien life form in leafy get-up. One day, the florist cuts his finger and a drop of blood instantly revives the plant. As it grows, its bottomless thirst bleeds the florist dry and he resorts to murder to keep it alive. He bargains with his conscience by limiting his victims to Skid Row regulars—banking on the twisted idea he’s doing society a favor while serving the plant’s needs. At first, we can’t figure out why he doesn’t toss the thing into the alley and forget it. But gradually we realize his compulsion to satisfy the plant’s cravings stems from his craving for acclaim. Discovering a new species will elevate him from mundane florist to botanist extraordinaire. And he's so sure that the plant holds his key to happiness he’s unaware it’s devouring him and his dream. Moral: When we allow our problems to control us, we’re in deep trouble.

That’s why we take all our burdens to God; we don’t know which of them will seek to control us. Every trial and temptation, whether agonizing or annoying, contains seeds of monstrous cravings. More sad stories than we can count open with, “It seemed like such a little thing at first…” So, if we must, we choose our poisons. But let us be warned: not one is sufficiently labeled, nor are we adequately qualified, to predict how we’ll react to it. Experience alone teaches what we can and can’t handle. And too often it’s a lesson learned too late.

How Can We?

When watching others bridle impulses and situations we can’t master, we dust off that golden oldie, “If They Can Do It, Why Can’t I”, forgetting the reason they can do it—whatever “it” may be—is because they’re strong where we’re weak. In other settings, the tables turn: we’re strong where they’re weak. It’s not a hard idea to grasp. But it can be very difficult to accept. I want to think my strengths give me an edge over yours. You want to believe my weaknesses make yours look like a day at the beach. Yet in the final analysis, all we can confidently say about one another is neither of us is so strong to escape struggle.

Since we’re all in the same boat, why bother God with our problems? After all, God helps those who help themselves. (There’s another oldie we need to pitch.) If we try hard enough, we should be able to handle it on our own. But how can we, if we can’t handle admitting what controls us has bled us dry, driven us to the unthinkable, and mocked us when we tried to justify our actions? How can we handle problems if they’re not what they seem? How long can we feed monsters that keep our pipe dreams alive, even as they devour our lives and dreams?

Once weakness grips us, handling it on our own is no longer feasible. We’re in deep trouble. We need God. And whether or not that business about God and self-help is true, this we know: God helps those who can’t help themselves. In Isaiah 43.2, God tells us when there’s no bridge we can cross, God will help us reach the other side. When we’re in over our heads, God will lift us. When we’re thrown into the fire, God will see we survive it unscathed. God doesn’t spare us from problems that seek to control us. God faces them with us to prove we can overcome weaknesses with God’s help.

Two Statements

This promise is first spoken to Israel. And though it sounds simplistic, it’s not wrong to summarize the Old Testament as the story of people who can’t break free of problems because they won’t confess their need for God. Over and over, Israel lets the same weaknesses drive it to the brink of ruin. What it lacks in vision it more than makes up in selective memory. As soon as they hit a dry patch in the desert, the Israelites groan with nostalgia for Egypt. When Babylon destroys Jerusalem and takes thousands hostage, they sit down beside the Tigris and sing about the good old days—never mind that they spent most of them fighting off enemies. When times are good, they persistently submit to self-destructive impulses. They feed monstrous cravings to keep their dreams of freedom and respect alive, never realizing that they’ve surrendered both to what controls them. Through it all, God keeps saying, “Let Me help you. You need Me.” But Israel is so sure of itself it puts God on hold until it’s overwhelmed. Then, like a disobedient toddler, it hands God its mess and says, “Please don’t be mad. We promise never to do it again.”

So why does God stick with Israel? Why does God stick with us? We’re no better at letting God help us than they. The answer rests in two statements that frame God’s promises to be with us through flood and fire. In verse 1, God says, “I have called you by My name. You are Mine,” while verse 4 declares, “Because you are precious in My sight, and honored, and I love you.” That’s the lever to pry us from problems and weaknesses that captivate us. They may grip us, but they’ll never hold us, because we belong to God. Although they try to diminish us, they’ll fail in the end, because we are precious to God. While they mock us, God honors us. While they abuse us, God loves us.

When we think of the cravings beneath our cravings—the weaknesses exploited by problems that control us—God speaks comfort to our souls. Why do we surrender to harmful obsessions? We want to be known. God says, “I have called you by My name.” We want to belong. God says, “You are Mine.” We want to matter. God says, “You are precious in My sight.” We want to be respected. God says, “You are honored.” And we crave love. God says, “I love you.” Problems that control us conjure crazy dreams that we chase but never catch. They’re merely distractions to prevent us from detecting the real nightmare of being eaten alive. Our God is a Creator, not a dream weaver—a Life Giver, not a bloodsucker. What God says is true, because God alone has the power to make it true. So we say to harms that seek our destruction, “Not this time, not ever again, because we know who we are and to Whom we belong. We are precious to God, honored, and God loves us.”

Awaken us, O God, from our oblivion. Quiet our spirits to hear You speak comfort to deep cravings that make us vulnerable to self-destructive obsessions. Forgive us of haughty delusions that ignore our need for You. You promise to be with us always. We ask You now to stay. Amen.

When we surrender control to problems and habits, we feed cravings that don’t satisfy and chase dreams we can’t catch. So we say to them, “Not this time. Not ever again.”

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/17/because-you-are-precious/

Come and See

2012-01-15T01:11:00.008-06:00

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him Whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” (John 1.45-46)

Out of Nowhere

How we Americans love yarns about people who rise to greatness from lowly beginnings! Indeed, when it comes to winning our hearts and respect, privilege can be a curse—a phenomenon sure to play out in sharp relief when GOP nominee apparent, Mitt Romney, goes head-to-head with Barack Obama. Deservedly or not, Romney epitomizes the rich kid whose cushy upbringing and lifestyle thwart his ability to identify with ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, President Obama is the postmodern Lincoln, the unlikely hero who surmounted impossible odds to clear our nation’s highest hurdle. And while this isn’t the year for a character referendum, for many, it will come down to a classic American dilemma: Go with a guy who had everything handed to him—or one who fought hard to get where he is? Should the candidates’ backgrounds become a decisive factor, Romney hasn’t a chance.

First-century residents of Palestine would predict differently. They couldn’t imagine a scenario ending in Romney’s defeat. Where they live, nobody comes out of nowhere and rises to greatness. Case in point: in Sunday’s Gospel (John 1.43-51), after Philip first encounters Jesus of Nazareth and tells Nathanael that he’s found the Messiah, Nathanael’s asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” It’s a baffled, maybe even scornful, reaction—a polite way of saying, “That’s crazy talk!”

Red Flags

Nathanael can’t conceive any good coming from Nazareth because there’s nothing good about it. It’s an out-of-the-way town without distinction. Having found nothing more than a cluster of simple homes where ancient Nazareth stood, archaeologists estimate its population at less than 400. It’s a farming community comprised of a few close-knit families who—based on discovery of a large pit comparable to a fall-out shelter—seem mainly concerned with surviving unstable times. And it appears they aren’t overly optimistic, as we find no signs of public architecture built to last—no marketplace, synagogue, or other common space. Instead, they rely on nearby Sepphoris for their social, consumer, and religious needs. About an hour’s walk from Nazareth, the city is a booming metropolis steeped in Greco-Roman culture and reputed to be a hotbed of social activism. Nathanael’s low opinion of Nazareth probably reflects its insignificance as a rural outpost, as well as its close proximity to an urban center that welcomes diversity and harbors non-conformists. And he may be shocked that none of this raises red flags to Philip.

Apart from concerns specific to Nazareth, Nathanael’s dismissal would be the same if Jesus hailed from any nondescript village—even his and Philip’s hometown of Bethsaida, a fishing hamlet near Capernaum, another alleged cauldron of dissent. Nothing substantial comes out of these places, because no one of substance lives there. Hearing Jesus is a Nazarene tells Nathanael He’s gravely unsuited for Messianic office. His family obviously has no major wealth or connections. If He’s had any formal education, it can’t be very good. Other than joining holiday caravans to Jerusalem, it’s likely He’s traveled no farther than Sepphoris; so He’s got no experience or sophistication to speak of.

Then, add to Jesus’s personal deficits the toll of small-town life. Spots like Nazareth are notoriously insular, intolerant, and often in-bred. Living where everybody’s your uncle never turns out good. What are backwater villages known for? Rushing to judgment about issues they don’t understand and attacking anyone who bucks a system they hate, but don’t have the nerve to change. Naturally, Nathanael shrugs Philip off. In their world, nobody important—least of all, the Messiah—comes from out of nowhere, especially a great big nowhere like Nazareth. But Philip doesn’t take offense at his friend’s cynicism. He doesn’t defend his convictions or dispute Nathanael’s reasoning. All Philip says is, “Come and see.”

Christ’s Offer

What we witness in Philip happens repeatedly in the Gospels. People meet Jesus and rush to tell friends and family, “Come and see!” Have we not felt the same impulse? A true encounter with Christ is unlike any other. In finding Jesus, we are found. When we follow His ways, lesser paths lose their appeal. We become aware of our place in the world and our fit in God’s plan. How can we not rush to tell those we love, “Come and see!” That’s when we find out how many Nathanaels we know. “What good can come from this?” they ask. Whether big-city skeptics or small-minded villagers, their assumptions about Jesus don’t jibe with the Savior we know. Lest their scorn twists us into knots, we avoid pointless bickering when we echo Philip’s gentle reply. Come and see.

With discipleship comes expectation we’ll spread the Word and make disciples—a dicey proposition if we’re enamored with competition and proving points. Christ’s offer of new life begs no defense and wins nothing from debate. We’re not called to recruit converts to our team; we’re privileged to invite others to discover what we’ve found. Nathanael agrees to check out Philip’s Messiah only to learn Jesus has already checked him out. As he approaches, Jesus says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1.47) Nathanael’s stunned. Christ’s acknowledgement of Nathanael’s integrity turns him around. His doubts fall away, enabling him to discover that Jesus is God’s Son.

A marvelous epilogue turns up in Early Church chronicles. Nathanael (whom the other Gospels call Bartholomew) travels the farthest of any Apostle to extend Christ's offer of new life. In fact, he’s the only disciple known to cross Roman borders, when his calling ultimately lands him in India. Because of Philip’s modest reply, Nathanael achieves legendary status as Christianity’s first missionary to Asia—a feat he can’t possibly anticipate when he decides to go and see what Philip’s raving about. Inviting those who question our faith to meet Christ for themselves asks nothing of us. We don’t have to defend our belief. We don’t have to trump their reasons why following Jesus isn’t such a good idea. All we have to say is, “Come and see.” And if they take our offer to heart, they too will discover that following Jesus opens up amazing possibilities. You want to know what good can come from Nazareth? Ask Nathanael.

Gentle Savior, like Nathanael, we’re stunned that You saw worthiness in us—even when we doubted You were worth seeing. Stamp “come and see” in our hearts. Keep it in our mouths, so we may lead others to what we’ve found. Fix our eyes on far horizons and open our minds to amazing possibilities. Amen.

Christ’s offer of new life begs no defense and wins nothing from debate. We answer questions about our faith with a modest suggestion: Come and see.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/15/come-and-see/

What Now?

2012-01-10T06:00:00.007-06:00

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in God.” (Lamentations 3.22-24)

A Timely Question

I don’t know what books high school kids read these days. Having heard that education's undergone many changes since my teens, they might not read books at all. Printed literature may be obsolete now, replaced by video and Websites. I hope not. There’s something exquisitely intangible about holding a book in hand—a mysterious comingling of the tactile and ephemeral that elevates reading into an immersive experience unlike any other. When there’s no screen sealing the writer’s thoughts and imagination behind glass, the distance between eye and page becomes a thin place of endless possibilities. If we let technology’s ease of use and cost-effectiveness rob our youth of this, we’ll be to blame when they haven’t the curiosity or stamina to venture beyond their narrows. Without advantages that can only be gained from learning by proxy—at length, in detail—in books, they'll pay dearly for being ill-equipped to meet life's demands and avoid its dangers.

In my youth, love of books was passed down from teacher to student and parent to child. Homes without bookcases were few and far between—and pitied. Our school’s storeroom shelves were lined with daunting titles that our instructors insisted we wrestle with. Looking back, their nerve to expose us to such emotionally fraught, politically charged literature is astonishing. We pondered class warfare and tyranny in A Tale of Two Cities; marital and psychological dysfunction in The Bell Jar; inhumanity and genocide in Heart of Darkness; madness and moral ambiguity in Crime and Punishment; bureaucratic intransigence and loss of identity in The Trial. Yet light always broke through; we always turned a corner to see what we were looking at wasn’t ordinary—that the characters’ sorrows and sacrifices resulted from being pushed to extremes. The Book of Lamentations, an anthology of five poems grieving the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, turns a similar corner. After going through extreme turmoil, the writer asks, “Now what?” What good remains and what good can come of the ordeal? With today marking our leave of Advent and Christmas’s extremes for the relative calm of ordinary time, it’s a timely question. Now what?

Despite All Evidence

Anyone who skates through Advent and Christmas—scanning the texts and images like museum exhibits—ends with the impression it’s all about angels and starlight, baby’s breath and happy endings. But we who do the homework know it’s not a pretty story. It’s a tale of common folks pushed to uncommon extremes, a saga fraught with raw emotion and charged with political peril. Reading the prophecies and Nativity accounts unlocks a thin place, where the veil between Heaven and Earth lifts to reveal the elegance of God’s plan. Every “i” is dotted, every “t” crossed. And the intricate rhymes that bring Christ into the world demand more of us than a passing nod. They insist we wrestle with their ugliness for our benefit. When we’re open to the narrative’s dark side, what we learn becomes ours to own.

So what have we learned? What good remains and what good can come of our experience? After years of trying to explain and rationalize why God permits Babylon to sack Jerusalem, level its Temple, and take countless Jews captive, Lamentations’ writer reaches an inexplicable, altogether irrational conclusion: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in God.’” (Lamentations 3.22-24) His sudden turnabout causes us to gasp. Really? None of it makes sense—until we back up to verse 21, where he says, “But this I call to mind.”

Ah, he’s been to the thin place of endless possibilities, where God’s ways defy logic. He’s not yet sure what to make of it, because he quickly relapses into depression. But even in the depths of his confusion a light shines. He sees that what he’s looking at isn’t ordinary. Good that outlasts his crisis, along with good because of it, will validate his trust in a God Who is ever faithful, despite all evidence to the contrary. He remembers that new mercies often come wrapped in weary hardship, waiting to emerge in wisdom and know-how he acquires while struggling to find them. Although pushed to extremes, he makes God his portion, knowing as little as that seems it’s more than enough to keep him going. We see in him exactly what we just observed in Isaiah’s stubborn hope, Mary and Joseph’s simple faith, the shepherds’ childlike curiosity, and the Magi’s rugged journey. To a one, they’re pushed to extremes, asked to take huge risks, and expected to believe things that no one with a spoon full of sense would dare consider. Still, light breaks through their haze. They present us with an infinitely powerful God wrapped in a tiny, fragile Infant Who looks at us with knowing eyes and asks, “Now what?”

The “What” We’ll Need

The irony of dubbing intervals between sacred seasons “ordinary time” is that real time is rarely ordinary. The “now” of everyday life can be so overwhelming we don’t get around to considering the “what.” That’s why this transition mustn’t be minimized as a calendar quirk or church thing. It’s a holy opportunity to make sure we leave Advent and Christmas with all they’ve given us. Every lesson learned, every discovery made, is a new mercy. Not one can be forgot, as it very well could be what we’ll need when now engulfs us.

We may need to reach for Mary when doubts rear up about God’s faithfulness and perfect plan. When we’re tempted to value ourselves more highly than others, we may have to summon the priceless hour we knelt beside gamy herdsmen to marvel at a homeless Child. We may have to recall the Magi’s enormous sacrifices and risks when we recoil from giving our best to a needy stranger. When we feel unjustly shut out, undervalued, or ignored, our only help may be recalling that Steadfast Love was born into a world that gave Him no room. Year in and year out we cross from Christmas into ordinary time with riches we didn’t expect to find—gifts too dear to discard, too vital to live without. The answer to “Now what?” starts with an inventory of what we’ve got. While our lists are never the same, nothing on them is ever ordinary.

And so we turn, O Lord, from the season to contemplate Your birth and resume everyday realities of ordinary time. May Your Spirit guide us so we’ll leave nothing behind and bring to mind what we need when now overwhelms us. Amen.

Today is when we inventory all we’ve gained from our Advent and Christmas sojourn, taking care to bring it with us as we return to ordinary time.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/10/what-now/

Postscript: What’s In Your Suitcase?

So I’m curious. What did you learn during your Advent and Christmas journey? Why is it essential that you not forget and leave it behind?

In a season that was strewn with invaluable discoveries for me, perhaps the greatest was renewed appreciation of simplicity. A confluence of unexpected events steered Walt and me to turn the volume way down this year. Rather than whipping up Christmas excitement—which I must confess we’re pretty good at—we just let it happen. And we both came out of the season refreshed and amazed, agreeing that it was one of the loveliest, purest Christmases we’ve ever known—and totally convinced we’ve stumbled on a better way.

Your turn…

A New Epiphany

2012-01-08T00:25:00.005-06:00

The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. (Revelation 21.23-25)

God’s Vision for Us

This weekend, most Catholics and many Protestants will observe the Feast of the Epiphany that commemorates the Magi’s adoration of the Christ Child as the manifestation—or “epiphany”—of God’s presence in the world. In Eastern Orthodox traditions, Epiphany is called Theophany, or “vision of God,” with its feast celebrated on its traditional date, January 6th. Because it also venerates the Incarnation, it’s often called “Orthodox Christmas,” which though true in spirit, is inaccurate. Theophany centers on Jesus’s baptism, where God is manifested as three distinct personages in three distinct forms: the Creator Who audibly declares Jesus is God’s Son, the Christ physically embodied in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit visibly present in the guise of a dove.

While both feasts celebrate the Incarnation with equal fervor, their contexts highlight a major divergence. We regard the Magi’s adoration as fulfillment of prophecy that closes the Messianic saga to make way for the New Covenant’s sequel. Theophany focuses entirely forward. Its vision of God at Baptism becomes the prophetic moment that initiates Jesus’s journey to the Cross. It delivers a promise independent of God’s covenant with Israel, a new epiphany that opens an era of all-inclusive grace. Bundling Matthew and Luke’s nativity narratives obscures this message by putting the Magi manger-side with the shepherds on Christmas night. Not only is it scripturally erroneous. It reduces Epiphany to folklore that downplays how radically the Incarnation redeems our perceptions of God and one another.

Spurred by thorough understanding of Judaic prophecies, the Magi come to Bethlehem to witness more than God honoring promises to the Jewish nation. The compulsion to glimpse into their future—to behold their God—drives them to Jesus’s crib. Viewing the Birth through Magi eyes, we see what Eastern believers see in the Baptism. Epiphany is transformed into theophany, a vision of God that reveals God’s vision for us.

Epiphany's Inherent Promise

Predictably—if somewhat unfortunately—Sunday’s lectionary selections skew to the Western angle, regaling Epiphany’s significance in light of past promises. We’re back in Isaiah 60, which foresees foreign dignitaries laying gifts at the Messiah’s feet, a prophecy that no doubt inspires the Magi account in Matthew 2.1-12 (Sunday’s Gospel). It also filters into Paul’s comments in Ephesians 3, as he describes his own epiphany that “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus.” (v6) Not that my opinion counts much, but it seems to me January 6th's daily readings do a far better job of illuminating Epiphany’s inherent promise of inclusion.

The selected Psalms ring with joy as they welcome people from every nation and walk of life to praise God. “Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and women alike, old and young together!” Psalm 148 shouts. And Psalm 67 explodes when it sings, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You judge the peoples with equity and the nations upon the earth.” In Isaiah 49, God ratifies the prophet’s radically inclusive calling, saying, “It is too light a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (v6)

Matthew 12 depicts Jesus curing everyone who comes to Him, demonstrating that God’s grace is freely available to all and rewriting the future of anyone whose faith reaches Christ. In verse 20, Matthew reprises Isaiah 42.3-4 to advance the revolutionary idea that those unjustly excluded no longer will be tossed aside: “He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until He brings justice to victory.” Finally, Revelation 20.23-25 reveals a world where Christ reigns supreme: “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there.”

This is God’s vision for us. It’s what the Magi see when they peer into the Christ Child’s eyes. When John the Baptist spies Jesus coming his way, it's what causes him to cry out, “Here is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29) It’s virtually impossible to describe the new epiphany without words like “all,” “everyone,” “the world,” “equity,” justice,” “light,” and “glory.” Although the Magi mislead Herod by suggesting they're on a diplomatic mission to pay homage to the King of the Jews, they're fully aware that their quest transcends politics, ethnicity, gender, and religion. It’s too light a thing to confine Christ’s presence to Israel’s struggles and biases. The Magi come bearing gifts in exchange for the immeasurable gift they’ll receive by crossing a threshold where foreigners rouse hostility and outsiders are excluded. They come to worship Christ because faith assures them Christ will accept their worship.

We Will Be Changed

The star that steers the Magi to Jesus fixes their eyes on the very same world that Revelation envisions—a daylight world of open gates, where everyone walks freely as equals, a world where the bright rays of God’s glory and welcoming glow of Christ’s lamplight obliterate any possibility of hidden dangers. That’s how the new epiphany works. Whether at Bethlehem or Jordan, in Birth or Baptism, the vision of God manifested in Jesus is the culmination of our desire to see God’s vision for us. And all it takes to turn vision into reality is crossing the threshold that divides our imperfect past and God’s impeccable future.

The new epiphany corrects our sight to perceive what transpires when we behold Christ. No matter what steers us to Jesus—whether an astral phenomenon, a nagging affliction, or outright injustice—when we reach Him we will be changed. Notice how the Magi’s story ends: “Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” (Matthew 2.12) One look at Jesus and we are forever changed. The new epiphany that miraculously converts the inconceivable into the inevitable also hands us an impossibility we’ll never overcome. After our vision of God reveals God’s vision for us, we defy every worldly power and fear to travel a different road. We can’t possibly leave the way we came.

Christ of Bethlehem and Jordan, we come seeking a vision of God that reveals God’s vision for us. Open our eyes to the transformation that transpires when we behold Your face. May we live as we truly are—forever changed, illuminated, the brave travellers of a different road that radically alters our reality and leads to the bright, fearless inevitability You promise. Amen.

The Magi cross thresholds to worship Christ because faith assures them Christ will accept their worship.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/08/a-new-epiphany/

Nodding Off

2012-01-03T23:04:00.005-06:00

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it. (Genesis 4.7)

Worthiness Issues

How telling that Scripture’s first recorded human conflict isn’t a power struggle. It’s not about money. It’s not sex-related. Although it ends in murder, it’s got nothing to do with one party threatening the other’s wellbeing and survival. In fact, differing opinions, clashing personalities, or—as many presume—sibling rivalry don’t enter the equation. God’s acceptance is the problem, and the conflict resides entirely in one man. Cain, notoriously immortalized as the Bible’s first killer, is undone when disregard of his worship raises worthiness issues.

The story, as told in Genesis 4, doesn’t say what’s wrong with Cain’s offering. Here’s all we’re told. Cain is Adam and Eve’s oldest son. And it’s important to keep that top of mind, because he retains singular status as humanity’s first-born. He’s the first to discover how growing up works, even as his folks figure out how to raise him. We who’ve been first children or first-time parents know well the anxieties of learning by trial and error, despite caring people who helped us get through it. Cain and his parents manage without any practical advice and emotional support. There’s no one to assure them their concerns are typical. No one consoles them when naïve mistakes trigger profound regret. No trusted relatives and friends take their hands and say, “It’s not the end of the world.”

Although Adam and Eve benefit from experience when their next child, Abel, comes along, everything Cain encounters in life is new to him. He basically invents agriculture by learning to cultivate crops. Abel grows up to be history’s first rancher, herding sheep rather than working the soil. It’s a hard life for both men, as each gradually masters the mysteries of nature’s cycles and setbacks. It is Cain who first offers God a portion of his crop in gratitude for God’s goodness. Abel follows suit, giving God a sample of his new lambs. And here’s where the trouble starts. God honors Abel’s offering, yet disregards Cain’s. God doesn’t say at first why Cain’s gift isn’t accepted and not knowing the reason uncorks a deadly potion of rage, devastation, and self-hatred. The best Cain comes up with is he must lack something Abel possesses. He’s somehow inferior in God’s eyes, and since he and Abel are the first to worship God with giving, there’s no one to suggest God’s apparent disregard may have a higher purpose. Could it be that God wants to teach Cain an invaluable lesson he’s missed?

Regaining Control

So we add another “first” to Cain’s list. As well as Scripture’s first human offspring, farmer, and murderer, he’s its first person to feel blindsided by divine prerogative. Genesis 4.5 tells us he “was very angry, and his countenance fell”—reactions we relate to, as we’ve all felt angry and crestfallen when it seemed like God disregarded us, ignored our intentions, or unfairly favored others. And though the drastic measures he takes to rectify his situation turns his story into a cautionary tale, we still owe Cain a debt of gratitude, because his inner turmoil occasions another critical first. This is the first time we witness God reach for us when fears of inferiority and rejection overtake our thoughts and emotions.

We have no idea what comes of God’s regard for Abel’s offering. Whatever transpires between them doesn’t interest the Genesis writer, whose fascination with Cain alerts us there’s something highly significant in his saga. While we lock on his lame attempt to brush off Abel’s murder—the infamous “Am I my brother’s keeper” moment—I’m convinced the big message appears before the crime, in verse 7, when God urges him to wake up to his self-destructive impulses. “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” God asks, before warning, “And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

The problem isn’t Cain’s offering, and the issue isn’t his inferiority or God favoring Abel over him. It’s his reluctance to master ideas and emotions that give rise to flawed beliefs and behaviors. The question isn’t whether God finds Cain worthy. It’s whether Cain’s thoughts and actions are worthy of him. His fear of rejection is rooted in his refusal to reject temptations that endanger him and others. “Do right and you’ll be accepted,” God says. “Control your urges or they’ll do you in.” It sounds so simple. Yet Cain proves how hard regaining control can be when we’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. Nothing he’s told stirs him. He lures Abel into a field, kills him, and pretends nothing happened. Then he finds out that disregard for God’s guidance leads to irrevocable loss. He’s not rejected. He’s dismissed. God sentences him to a fugitive life among people who may want to kill him, yet refrain because he’s cursed with a “hands-off” mark. He ends up living in fear, in a land called Nod, far from God’s presence and everything he knows.

Nothing to Do with God

God’s love is unconditional—too priceless to earn and too pure to deserve. Knowing that moots the question of God’s acceptance. How would a Creator Who goes to inconceivable lengths to embody love—and then die for it—conceivably reject anyone? Doing so would undo all that Jesus achieved and, in John 6.37-38, He flatly says that’s not going to happen: “Everything that God gives Me will come to Me, and anyone who comes to Me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of the One Who sent Me.” So our debates and anxieties about who is or isn’t acceptable to God—who’s worthy of grace and who’s not—who’s saved and who isn’t—have nothing to do with God. It’s the same tiresome fear that consumes Cain and ultimately destroys two lives, the oldest human conflict in the Book. While we’re nodding off, conjuring reasons why God accepts some and rejects others, God’s already put the matter to rest with a question and caution that couldn’t be plainer: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

Claiming our Scriptural right to active worship and participation in Christ’s body begins by honoring God’s desire that our lives reflect principles that please God. In Romans 12.1-2, Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” It’s Genesis 4.7 all over again, isn’t it? Do well and you’ll be accepted; present yourself as a living sacrifice. Master harmful urges; renew your mind.

Although Cain’s fields produced healthy crops, his life was unfruitful, and that corrupted his offering, which in turn loosed doubt in God’s justice and his self-worth. If only he’d woke up when God nudged him. If only he’d cleared away the clutter of dead-end attitudes and unproductive pursuits. If only he’d renewed his mind. Then he’d have known what God wants us to know. The matter of God’s acceptance has been settled since the dawn of time. Feeling inferior and fearing rejection are nothing more than symptoms of unhealthy thinking.

Wake us, O God. Bring us face-to-face with self-destructive attitudes and pursuits that destroy confidence in Your acceptance and our worth. Heighten our awareness that unhealthy temptations want to do us in. And give us boldness to defy them by renewing our minds in keeping with Your principles. Amen.

While we nod off, conjuring silly reasons why God should accept some and reject others, God’s already put the matter to rest.

Podcast link: Nodding Off

Lookers

2012-01-01T04:24:00.004-06:00

She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the Child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2.37-38)

Weighty Words

Just before Christmas I caught a “Primetime” rerun of Diane Sawyer’s report on cloistered nuns. Unlike sisters who dedicate their lives to charitable service, these saintly women heed a monastic calling to denounce all worldly obligations so they’re free to pray for the world. What Sawyer discovered in their fortitude, discipline, and self-sacrifice was astounding. Along with a perpetual intercessory vigil within their abbey walls, they answer a congregational call to prayer every three hours. Eight times a day they forego their communal and personal needs to lift our needs before God. Sawyer’s awe focused on the physical and emotional havoc that must result from such a grueling regimen. The nuns’ selflessness elicited a different response on my part, however. I couldn’t stop thinking, “Somewhere, someone is praying for me.” Think about that. Right now, regardless when you read this, people tucked away in abbeys and monasteries around the world are bowed in prayer for you—for us.

The manner in which the nuns discussed their vows took Sawyer aback. They spoke of their symbolic marriage to Christ as if it were an actual union and described their relationship in intimate terms—not merely loving Christ, but being in love with Christ. Although their passion was startling, their commitment defused any skepticism about their sincerity. Their lives gave weight to their words. In Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 2.22-40), we meet Anna, perhaps the New Testament’s finest example of a cloistered, intensely devout woman. Like the nuns that Sawyer interviewed, her integrity precedes her. On seeing the Infant, she rejoices and bears witness that He is Israel’s Promised Redeemer. And when Anna speaks, people listen. They may be taken aback but, still, they listen.

Substitution

Christmas’s majesty invites us to overlook a sad aspect of its tale. By necessity, it scuttles any dreams Mary and Joseph harbor about being newlyweds and first-time parents. What enthralls us surely disappoints them on many levels. Luke 2.19 suggests Mary comes to terms with it, saying when the shepherds depart, she “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Eight days pass before things resemble anything Mary or Joseph may have dreamt about. Per custom, their Baby is circumcised and named “Jesus.” Like today, the bris is a private affair—a notable, yet not notably “big,” event. The big day that Joseph and Mary dream of comes 32 days later, when they go to Jerusalem, where Mary presents herself and Jesus to the Temple priests. That’s when Anna enters the picture, and grasping her importance requires fully understanding what’s going on.

Two essential rites are publicly observed. The first ends Mary’s purification—the 40-day period banning her contact with anyone outside her household. The second, designated for first-born sons, declares Jesus “holy to the Lord” (v23), with a sacrificial ritual that redeems Him just as Israel’s oldest males are saved when the Death Angel visited Egypt. The offering mirrors that of the first Passover: the blood of a lamb. But Mosaic Law makes exceptions for mothers who can’t afford a lamb. In its place, she offers a pair of turtledoves or young pigeons—one to seal her purification and the other a redemptive offering for her first-born son. Mary takes this option for many reasons. With pregnancy coming before her marriage is finalized, it’s doubtful her dowry has been transferred. Her 40-day confinement in Bethlehem has likely drained the couple’s resources. The costs of caring for a new mother and child have added to their burden. So we can assume they’re near penniless when they reach the Temple.

Putting practicalities aside, however, the presentation’s specifics are no less illuminating than the Nativity’s attention to detail. Once again, arbitrary factors combine to establish Jesus’s identification with the poor, uprooted, and those incapable of meeting the Law’s highest demands. More than that, it’s here that the substitution theme comes to the fore. The usual sacrifice is bypassed for a seemingly lower—nonetheless exceptional—offering that obtains astounding beauty in the nature of the exchange. It replaces an earthbound, dim-witted beast with a free and heavenly creature that lights on the ground yet lives in the sky.

Although we often call Jesus “the Lamb of God,” the avian substitution for His redemption more aptly presages His substitution for our redemption. The Lord of Heaven alights on Earth to save us. Our vantage from the far side of Calvary crystallizes the substitution’s meaning, but we can’t fathom anyone who witnesses the presentation perceiving its import. Yet two elderly prophets—Simeon and Anna—not only see it. They get it, because they’ve spent their lives looking for it. They glory in having the long-awaited Christ is in their midst.

All

Luke writes that the Spirit guides Simeon to the Temple, where he takes the month-old Child in his arms and praises God. He tells his Creator he’s ready to die, “for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” (v30-32) He prophesies to Mary, foretelling Jesus’s death by saying He’s destined “to be a Sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (v34-35)

While Mary and Joseph marvel at Simeon’s words, Anna appears. Luke tells us she’s 84 and cloistered herself in the Temple after her husband of seven years died. Since women of her time marry in their teens, Anna has spent 60-plus years fasting, praying, and anticipating the Savior. To three generations of worshipers she’s a Temple fixture whose permanence and devotion endow her testimony with enduring truth. She enlarges on Simeon’s praise and prophecy by including everyone who wisely attends to her message. Verse 38 reads, “At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the Child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

A Breed Apart

No matter who, what, or where we are, trusting God’s Word transforms us from passive listeners into passionate lookers. Like Simeon, we live to see God’s pledges materialize before our eyes. Like Anna, we make great sacrifices to watch patiently for the joy and salvation promised to us. Like Mary and Joseph, we cope with the deferral of ordinary dreams and discover—to our amazement—God’s extraordinary purpose for our lives. As lookers, we’re a breed apart. We’re undaunted when what we observe conflicts with the vision God instills in our beings. We look for something better, purer, and truer than worldly favor or fortune—something so marvelous it can’t be mistaken as anything less than God’s handiwork. And we know it when we see it, because we know how God works. Material hardships result in spiritual windfalls. Periods of isolation bring us into the company of righteous prophets and people, fellow lookers one and all. When the best we can offer falls below traditional standards, faith magnifies our ability to see more than meets the eye. We view moments of inadequacy as new promises of greater things. Mary’s poor sacrifice activates Simeon and Anna’s vision to see the promise is bigger than they realized. The Christ Child’s symbolic redemption signals a New Order of inclusion God has “prepared in the presence of all peoples,” Simeon declares, “a revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” That’s incredibly big, completely unexpected and unprecedented good news.

How serendipitous that this passage finds its way to us on New Year’s Day, just as midnight resolutions start losing their fizz. The challenge at hand isn’t about resolving to do better in the coming months. It’s about mustering resolve to look for promises God wants to reveal to, in, and through us. Time is immaterial. Tenacious faith is what counts. Marching into 2012, our eyes fixed on God’s pledges, we’ll inevitably stumble on blind spots and momentary impasses of doubt and impatience. We’ll mistake harsh realities for hard-set impossibilities. Dim-witted, earthbound logic will present every reason to stop believing, praying, and watching for God’s Word to come to pass. In those moments, we reach for Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth, the Promise of all promises, Who with infinite compassion and wisdom calls people we don’t know to pray us through hours when our vision falters. May Anna and Simeon’s examples light our way through the coming year and the remainder of our days.

Savior, Whose promises are ever true, we begin another year resolved to look for Your promises to be realized in us. Illuminate our understanding that each ordinary day brings us one day closer to Big Days, when we marvel at Your handiwork. Make us tenacious lookers. Endow us with trust to await the visions You instill in our beings. Amen.

When what we observe conflicts with the vision God instills in us, we look beyond what we see, viewing moments of inadequacy as new promises of greater things.

Postscript: New Venture for a New Year

For some time, Britt, a longtime S-F reader and friend, has urged me to podcast the posts in tandem with publishing them here. It took a while for me to grasp why she was so enthusiastic and confident about the idea. But I finally got it and I’m delighted to report today launches the audio version of Straight-Friendly. It’s not much—just me reading the post—but it’s a start. Currently, I’m posting the podcasts on S-F’s freshly minted podbean site. I’ve yet to solve the inevitable Apple mysteries embedded in making them available via iTunes. Hopefully, that will happen very soon. I ask your prayers for this new venture, invite you to listen, and pass the link along to others who might want to listen in too!

http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/01/lookers/

(Thank you so much, Britt, for your gentle insistence. It wasn’t as difficult as I imagined!)

Happy New Year, everyone! May God bless you richly!

Never Alone

2011-12-25T12:44:00.005-06:00

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1.14)

Among Us

We had a bit of a scare this weekend. One of Walt’s online buddies—who, like countless others during the holiday season, has been struggling with loneliness and despondence—messaged that he was giving up. He felt so isolated and unloved that he wrote, “They won’t find me for weeks after I do it, because no one calls or comes around.” Walt had only his friend’s screen name, first name, the town he lived in, and some sketchy information about his professional life to go on. But he also had two invaluable gifts: driving concern and years of journalism experience. He set out to find his friend, hoping he’d reach him in time. Late last night we heard from his town’s police department. They’d located him. He was alive and had come to grips with his depression. As much as all could be well, it was.

When the good news came, I was staring at Sunday’s Gospel (John 1.1-14), wondering what I could possibly say about this famous passage. This is John’s brilliantly mystical Incarnation account, unhindered by human involvement and incidentals. No Mary, Joseph, Baby, angels, shepherds, Magi, star, stable—nothing we can paint or put on a greeting card—just the Word, the eternal God, calling Light and Life into existence and then becoming Life to bring Light to our dark, dangerous, and deadly world. “They found him!” Walt told me with great relief, adding, “I’m wrung out. I’m going to bed.” He kissed me goodnight, we exchanged “Merry Christmases,” and when I returned to the text, two words from John 1.14 caught my eye: among us.

All That is God’s

The Good News of Christmas is we are not alone. We can never be alone. The Word, unceasingly present, unconditionally loving, and unhampered by our blindness, lives among us. With us. In us. The Word that called Light and Life into existence becomes Life to bring Light to our loneliness, depression, and hopelessness. “Like a father’s only son,” John says—meaning all that is God’s is Christ’s, and all that is Christ’s is ours—the Word that lives among us is “full of grace and truth.” When human graces like kindness, concern, and acceptance forget where we live, the Christ Who lives among, with, and in us presents us with uncompromised grace. When feelings of isolation and abandonment conjure lies to convince us we’re on our own, Christ’s everlasting truth breaks through our darkness.

We’ve worked the Nativity narratives from every angle. We’ve studied the prophets and rehearsed the fulfillment of their messages. We’ve sung the carols about the humble Infant, the shining star, the angel chorus, and the world-shaking implications of two young peasants’ courage to trust God’s promises. Now it’s time for us to contemplate the grace and truth that surround us: we’re never alone.

Emmanuel

“Call Him ‘Emmanuel,’” Isaiah says, “God with us.” Today we rejoice in the Word that became flesh to live among us, praying we won’t let this sacred season pass without renewing our faith that we are never alone.

May the Word bring Life and Light to us in vivid ways that fill us with grace and truth. Happiest of Christmases to you all. Love, Tim.

Postscript: “No One is Alone”

It’s not a carol, hymn, or Christian song of any kind. It’s not even about God. It’s from Into the Woods, a musical about giants and witches and magic beans. Yet, despite the lyrical anomalies, every time I hear Stephen Sondheim’s “No One is Alone,” I hear the Word speak assurance to me: "I became flesh for you. You're never alone."

Hollow Days

2011-12-22T00:44:00.004-06:00

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean. (Matthew 23.25-26)

Red-and-Green Scare

In what’s become a “Daily Show” holiday tradition, Jon Stewart—the mock newscast’s corrosively irreverent, acutely perceptive anchor—has delighted in lampooning this year’s dispatches from the so-called “War on Christmas.” Stewart’s gripe, echoed by millions from every creed and persuasion, takes aim at far-right extremists who blindly equate Americanism with Christianity. Year after year, they scour the landscape for examples of jurists, officials, and merchandisers deleting “Christ” from “Christmas.” This just in: the Littleburg city council has banned the Nativity crèche from the firehouse lawn. This just in: a judge has enjoined Gopher Gulch Elementary from dramatizing Luke 2 at its year-end assembly. This just in: a new Big Store policy prohibits employees from wishing their customers a merry Christmas. This just in: Godless hoodlums who hate Jesus are trying to destroy everything He and America stand for!

This media-spun, 50s-style Red-and-Green Scare reached a new low several days ago, when Bill O’Reilly—FOX News’s über-“American” and self-professed “Christian” pundit—fired back in a commentary capped with this statement: “Jon Stewart is going to Hell.” O’Reilly’s freedom to disagree with, even to disparage, Stewart is a sacrosanct American right. Yet, as a Christian, surely he’s aware no Scripture authorizes him to sentence Stewart or anyone else to eternal damnation. Has he forgot—or does he not care—that the Babe he’s so consumed with enshrining will become the Rabbi Who preaches, “With the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get”? (Matthew 7.2) Is he more concerned with winning arguments than compromising his witness and endangering his soul? Is not deigning to speak for God the height of what he decries—godlessness? There lies the hypocrisy of Red-and-Green Scare tactics. Leveraging condemnation to force Christ down non-believers’ throats is patently unchristian. It’s the antithesis of perfect love that, according to 1 John 4.18, “casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” In threatening Stewart with Hell, it is O’Reilly who should be afraid.

All Show, No Substance

Need it be said that Red-and-Green Scare perpetrators run afoul of cherished American principles like inclusiveness, religious diversity, and separation of Church and State? Americanism cannot—and must never—be equated with Christianity for reasons any seventh grader can understand. Saying we’re a “Christian” nation implies non-Christian citizens are un-American. That’s just ridiculous—especially since they’re not exempt from taxes, military service, regulatory compliance, and other civic duties. (Were that so, no doubt many advancing the far right’s “Christian” agenda would flock to alternative beliefs.) The Founders’ resistance to mixing faith and politics was born of a uniquely American desire to safeguard religious liberty. The Pilgrims settled our nation on conviction that freedom to live by one’s beliefs is immune to government mandate and interference. They were so committed to protecting privacy of faith that they outlawed any public religious expression whatsoever—to the point that decorating the exterior of one’s home for Christmas or saying “Merry Christmas” on the street resulted in stiff fines. If the Red-and-Green Scare muckrakers actually lived in the colonial days they mythologize as our nation’s halcyon Christian era, they’d be tossed in jail, never to be seen or heard again.

As an informed citizen, the “War on Christmas” charade strikes me as preposterously anti-American. As an informed believer, it appalls me. It exploits the Prince of Peace’s birth to excuse bloodthirsty partisan attacks. It perverts the season centered on Christianity’s holiest day into a run of hollow days that defile the Christ Child by refuting His message. It astounds me that Christmas’s uncalled-for defenders can say, “Peace on Earth, goodwill to all people” and “Go to Hell” in one breath. I tremble to think how many confuse their phony tantrums with Christ’s true ways. And before my anger rises up, my heart sinks in dismay that otherwise intelligent people have no clue their self-righteous façade exposes their corruption and bigotry. Their devout rhetoric can’t quell one’s sense they’re to our time what many Pharisees were to Jesus’s: all show and no substance.

A Humbug

In Matthew 23, Jesus gears up to describe the times preceding the Second Coming by pronouncing seven woes on leaders who poison the faith climate of His day. His list of complaints reads like a modern op-ed diatribe that pulls down the “Christian” extremist platform plank-by-plank. He charges them with: religious exclusion; breeding hatred; placing trust in riches; neglecting justice, mercy and faith; whitewashing rotten ideas; and revising history to enhance their image. Dead-center of His furious rampage against their recklessness, Jesus unleashes His fourth outrage: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.” (v25-26)

In one fell swoop Jesus crushes the presentation-is-everything myth that media mavens, spin doctors, politicians, and religious pretenders swear by. Just as pinning a flag to our lapels doesn’t make us patriots, defending public Nativity scenes and saying “Merry Christmas” don’t make us Christians. If our motives are impure, our faith is a figment of imagination. Our words ring as hollow as our souls. This isn’t one man’s opinion, a bone of left-right contention, or open for debate. It’s a matter of record, spoken 2000 years ago by the One we claim to serve. If we disagree, we might consider stepping away from the pulpit and off the air long enough to get on our knees and discuss the issue with Him.

Keeping “Christ” in “Christmas” means nothing if we don’t keep Christmas holy. Declaring, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” is futile if our reasons for saying so contradict the purpose of His birth. It’s silly of us to sing, “Peace on Earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled,” while creating disharmony, bullying people, and preaching favoritism. O’Reilly’s impudence was foolish—and disheartening—twice over. First, as a Jew, Stewart subscribes to a faith that doesn’t believe in Hell; it was a hollow threat. But second, O’Reilly took a hammer to his own piety and revealed the hollowness it masks. The “War on Christmas” is a humbug. It proves, once again, there’s nothing to the myth that presentation is everything.

We adore You, O Christ—Prince of Peace, Joy of our desiring, and Mediator between God and humanity. May we not pass this holiest of seasons without searching our hearts. Give us grace to purify ourselves through and through. Make us holy vessels for Your glory and honor. Amen.

The Red-and-Green Scare’s “War on Christmas” is a humbug that contradicts the purpose of Jesus’s birth and everything He represents.

Postscript: “Instruments”

The “War on Christmas” malarkey hastens us to renew the vow St. Francis of Assisi immortalized in his prayer. As Sarah McLachlan’s haunting rendition reminds us, we are instruments of God’s peace, love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy. We are called to bear Christmas’s vitally needed gifts to the world, not to stomp them to bits in a phony war to defend its public expression.

Swaddling

2011-12-19T22:40:00.007-06:00

This will be a sign for you: you will find a Child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. (Luke 2.12)

Poetry

Advent’s journey of long, still, and sober nights is winding down. Three days from now, Earth will tilt on its axis—a prized event for those who’ve endured six months of waning daylight. North, south, east, and west, Advent pilgrims have Bethlehem in full view. We who are given to flights of imagination envision millions of faithful believers converging on a country road that snakes across broad meadowlands outlying the hilltop village known as “the City of David.” And right about here is when I (and I suspect many like me) really start to miss the King James Version’s Nativity accounts. Up to this point, newer, more accurate translations of the Advent texts are a godsend. Once we get to the birth, however, modern versions can’t compete with the KJV’s poetry.

Compare the New Revised Standard Version’s translation of the angel’s instruction to the shepherds: “This will be a sign for you: you will find a Child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2.12) Now listen to the KJV: “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” I would guess the KJV’s use of “swaddling” is the first time most of us encounter the term. Since it sounds comfy, we assume “swaddling clothes” are akin to a receiving blanket—a downy wrap for a newborn. And we may be shocked to learn they're not. The NSRV’s tone-deaf “bands of cloth” is spot-on. Swaddling clothes are fabric strips that bind ancient newborns’ movement. After birth, they’re bathed and salted (to preserve their soft skin), and tightly wrapped below the neck to protect them from insect bites and straighten their limbs. Swaddling is anything but comfy. It’s hot, confining, and makes for very unhappy babies. The Baby Jesus we imagine nestled in a warm blanket is not Whom the shepherds find. They see a cranky, immobilized Infant Who looks more like a mummy than a Holy Child. So much for poetry.

A World That Restrains Him

Swaddling continued into the 1600s, well after artists began depicting the Nativity in paint and stone. Even among works dated before it went out of vogue, however, very few portray a tightly wrapped Child. (Those that do present Jesus as blissfully content to be bound neck-to-foot.) Personally, I can’t recall swaddling in any Sunday school and storybook illustrations from my childhood. Nor do I remember a Bible teacher or minister explaining it—ever. Without asking, the reason seems apparent. A corseted, bawling, miserable Baby Jesus is counterintuitive to all He represents. This is the Child Who brings freedom, peace, and joy to the world. Why would an artist, teacher, or minister present Him any other way but free, peaceful, and happy?

Yet peeking into a flea-infested manger to spy a trussed-up, squirmy, fretful Christ Child somehow appeals to me. I’m strangely moved by thought of Jesus coming into a world that instantly restrains Him and causes His parents great anguish. What frustration Mary must feel, as she fights every urge to loose Him and hold the flesh of her flesh to her bosom. How Joseph must ache to take Jesus’s tiny hand in his calloused palm and feel the touch of God. The agony they must experience, as the Baby wails to break free. And in that moment, they epitomize a profound conflict that burdens all of us who carve a birthplace for Christ in our hearts.

Born to Be Free

Conventional wisdom says restricting Jesus’s movement in our lives is best for Him. If we truly love Him, we won’t expose Him to our diseases. His reach must be severely limited and His touch denied. For His health and safety, His cries to be loosed must be ignored. A freely moving Christ is an irresponsibly handled One, we’re told. This Sacred Child’s misfortune is being born into a world of clear and present dangers none so pure as He could possibly withstand. Sharp bites of infectious hatred and violence that barely faze us will destroy Him. Pressures that tie us in knots will bend and break His tender limbs. Swaddle Jesus, we’re told. Wrap Him up tightly to shield Him from evils and ugliness that plague our world. Be afraid for Him—and fear what people will think if you give Him free access in your life. Imagine their discomfort when they see the Christ born inside you held close to your bosom. Think of their alarm when touching the hand of God matters more to you than bowing to custom. Worry more about what will be said of you behind your back than the Christ Child’s cries to be loosed in your heart.

Perhaps painters and sculptors, teachers and ministers don’t present a swaddled Jesus because they’ve freed the Christ born in them. Perhaps they’ve come to grips with a truth that conventional wisdom doesn’t account for: the tiny Babe is indestructible. He’s the Eternal Word made flesh, God Incarnate, the Creator disguised as creation. We need neither be afraid for Him nor fear what people will think and say. The Baby born to free us is born to be free in us. Come to the stable. Look in the manger. But don’t stop there. Lift the Child from the hay. Unravel His restraints and let them fall away. Permit Him to move as He pleases. Permit yourself to hold Him close. Feel God’s touch. Discover the freedom from fear, peace of mind, and joy of living that Christ brings. Set Jesus free.

Most Holy and Indestructible Child, we confess bowing to conventional wisdom that urges us to restrict Your movement. We repent of our foolish fears and conformity. Be free in us. Move as You will. And free us to let You remain free, to hold You close and feel Your touch always. Amen.

See the Newborn trussed in swaddling and set Him free. (Georges de la Tour: Adoration of the Shepherds; c. 1644)

Postscript: “Move in Me”

Take this little song with you to the manger. Sing it quietly, as a prayer to the Infant. Set Him free, and find the freedom, peace, and joy He brings.

Disclosure

2011-12-18T06:44:00.005-06:00

Now to God Who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles. (Romans 16.25-26)

Mechanics and Meaning

Though I find dogs endearing and admire the mutual loyalty that binds them and their masters, there’s no getting around it. I’m a cat lover through and through. And if I’m not careful, I can easily turn into the worst kind of cat lover—the insufferable kind that bores people blind with tedious testimonials of how clever and unique his felines are. But, as much as I resist saying so, our two are remarkably clever and unique. While Cody and Max get along splendidly, their interests couldn’t be less alike. Mechanics fascinate Cody. We catch him watching us use gizmos, and once he’s sure he’s got the process down, he’ll practice until he masters it. He turns on faucets, flips off light switches, awakens computers, and retrieves pages from the printer. Max doesn’t care how things work. He’s intrigued with what they’re for. He connects their function to the world around him. When suitcases come out, he knows we’re going away. When the microwave whirs, he knows we’re about to eat. When darkness begins to fade, he scurries to a window and doesn’t budge until the sun finds its place in the sky.

So much about Max and Cody reminds me of our responses to God’s promises. Sometimes we’re like Cody. A promise sets off an obsession with how it will work. We devote exorbitant time and energy to questions we can't possibly answer. Then, sometimes we’re like Max. Curiosity about what the promise is for—what it means—overtakes us and we won’t rest until we connect its function to the world around us. Neither is necessarily bad, except when God isn’t forthcoming about the promise’s mechanics and/or meaning. In those cases, our only choice is to let it play out, because obsessing about it is the way of madness.

Advent’s Big Lesson

What is Advent, if not a refresher course in the inscrutable mechanics and indecipherable meaning of God’s promises? It plunges us into the murky depths of Second Coming parables and prophecies, and challenges us to compare our befuddlement to the bewilderment surrounding Christ’s birth. Advent makes no pretense that we’ll solve either mystery. But when we do the hard work it assigns us, actively engaging its material—instead of trudging through the semester to get to the holiday—we come out with increased certainty that God’s great promises always include an intricately detailed strategy to back them up. And with that, we gain a richer understanding that the difference between our relationship with God and those we forge with one another rests in their opposing ideas of mutual trust.

We gauge confidence in human relationships by how we openly confide in each other. With God, comfort with not knowing indicates the extent of our faith that God knows everything about us and what’s best for us. For no reason besides pure love for us, God spares us the heartache—and headache—of wrestling with what we can’t possibly absorb by telling us only what we need to know. We never offend or anger God by asking for more information. Before we ask, though, we should prepare not to be offended or angry when God refuses. God loves us too much to burden us with more than we can digest. In return, God trusts us to wait patiently on God’s promises, knowing they’ll be honored in ways that ultimately make their mechanics and meaning transparent.

That’s the Big Lesson of Advent, isn’t it? While we’re perched in a tumultuous present, peering at impenetrable promises of future peace and deliverance, Advent teaches us to refresh our recall of how God’s promises come to fruition. The immense complexity of God’s covenant with Israel cripples the mind. It spans thousands of years, involves countless people and dozens of nations, accounts for each step in human progress, and acquires no end of finely nuanced implications that affect every aspect of our existence. Even though the Bible records its epic proportions in painstaking detail, synthesizing its mechanics and meaning would exceed our capabilities were it not for how they’re revealed.

The promise arrives wreathed in simplicity and haloed with wonder. It’s revealed through a maiden so far removed from the nexus of political, social, and religious power that the Child she bears irrevocably redefines power’s meaning and importance for all time. Every mortal expectation is subverted by something so impossible it never crossed the brightest minds. Sacrosanct prejudices are abolished, inequitable judgments overturned, and manmade traditions dismantled. And all of this transpires not by deafening pronouncements in vast arenas, but by the barely audible cry of an illegitimate Baby born in the seedy obscurity of a borrowed stable. The promise Israel struggled for generations to grasp becomes transparently evident in ways they never imagined.

What Thwarts Our Faith

As Paul ends his epistle to the Romans—by far his most thorough explanation of why patient trust in God’s promises serves our best interests—he encapsulates Advent’s Big Lesson. He prays God will strengthen the Romans “according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.” (Romans 16.25-26) It’s likely this passage (Sunday’s New Testament reading) may feel the squeeze of the other texts: Luke’s rendering of The Annunciation and Mary’s song, and 2 Samuel’s account of another great promise, when God ordains David to build a magnificent temple. Yet the majesty foreshadowed in the more auspicious readings radiates its fullness in Paul’s three verses.

We have no doubt God’s promises are true. Obsessive curiosity about how they work and what they mean is what thwarts our faith. It sets us up for needless frustration and impatience. As Advent’s Big Lesson nears it close, it refreshes our memory and reminds us that full and transparent disclosure will arrive the moment God makes good on God’s promise. Without fail, we will be stunned by the extent of God’s plan and meanings it unfolds. Until then, we’re wise to trust God to perform as promised and honor God’s trust in us by waiting until the promise comes to pass. God keeps secrets in order to keep promises.

Giver and Keeper of great promises, we pray Your strength to trust Your love and wisdom in honoring Your vows to us. Increase our capacity to wait. May confidence in Your full and transparent disclosure well up within us as we defer to Your timing, plan, and purpose. Amen.

The makings and meanings of God’s promises exceed our understanding. All we need to know is when God makes good on a promise, everything about it is transparently clear.

Postscript: “All Things Are Working for Me”

What happens when we take Advent’s Big Lesson and scale it down to a personal size? At some point, our trust in God’s promises shrink in the face of looming despair and defeat. No singer/songwriter I know is more gifted than Fred Hammond at translating divine principles like trust and patience into candid responses. This song, which moves me no end, makes no mention of Christ’s birth or what it reveals. Yet few, if any, Advent hymns and Christmas carols express the struggle to wait for delivery of God’s promises—which is what Advent and Christmas are all about.

ALL THINGS ARE WORKING

Falling apart and tearing at the seams

Tribulation lends a hand and squeezes your hopes and dreams

You say you retreat, you say you just can't win

Before you let your circumstance tell you how the story ends

God's Word says you can stand

He'll cover you with His grace

Everything you need is in your hand

So lift up your head and say

All things are working for me

Even things I can't see

Your ways are so beyond me

But You said that You would

Let it be for my good

So I'll rest and just believe

I know you say you've got it bad right now

Let me say I know that feeling well

To make good plans for life

And then you watch them take a downward spin

Let me encourage you while I encourage me

See the raging rain and wind

But He'll speak peace and it will end

All things are working for me...

Many days and night I cried because I felt let down

I won't always receive good

But a praise in my heart will remain

So with tears in your eyes

Know sometimes it might get rough

But say, Lord I love you more and that's enough to know...

All things are working for me...

Magicians and Kings

2011-12-17T06:48:00.007-06:00

Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the Child Who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed His star at its rising, and have come to pay Him homage.” (Matthew 2.1-2)

Wizards

It’s rarely mentioned that the Christ Child’s most illustrious visitors are revered practitioners of occult arts. Bible translators take pains to divorce the star-brought Easterners from their profession, calling them “wise men,” or loosely transliterating Matthew’s word (magoi) as “Magi.” We associate them with storybook images of lavishly robed men presenting treasure to Baby Jesus. But in Matthew’s day, the Magi are legendary disciples of Zoroaster, the Persian seer credited with inventing astrology and composing two epic poems that depict humanity’s struggle to discern truth and lies. The Magi’s quest for truth and reputation for reading the skies lend credence to Matthew’s assertion a star brings them to Jesus's crib. What goes unnoted in his Gospel, however, is first-century readers’ assumption their gifts to divine astral augurs also equip them to alter fates foretold in the stars. In short, they’re wizards at rewriting history.

The Magi’s appearance in Matthew raises eyebrows, since he shapes his Gospel for notoriously xenophobic Jewish readers, whose sacred texts explicitly warn against consulting with astrologers and sorcerers. Thus, it’s likely that Matthew’s intended readership reacts very differently to the Magi than we do. What we find enchanting—the star, fancy costumes, gold, and exotic spices—is worrisome to them. Foreign magicians have no place in their Messiah narrative. Sure, the prophets tell of Gentile kings bowing before Israel’s King with offerings of gold and incense. But Matthew sends in kings’ men—well-paid staff astrologers who answer their king’s beck and call, even accompanying him in battle, where they monitor heavenly signs and wield magical powers that turn the tide in his favor.

Agency

At risk of alienating literal-minded readers, Matthew bends Jewish prophecy in hopes that more insightful ones will perceive the Nativity’s magnitude. The Magi’s presence in Bethlehem confirms Jesus’s birth as a Messianic event that signals the end of religious labels and exclusion—in other words, a New Order aligned with God’s intention that Jesus be the Savior of the world. While Luke stresses the universal significance of Jesus’s birth by setting it in a barn and delegating His worship to country bumpkins, Matthew ignores all of that to sock his readers with a staggering blow. The Magi are everything they loathe and fear—strangers, pagans, and sorcerers! They’re filthier than the filthiest stable. Yet they alone display courage to seek Christ. Which brings us to Matthew’s most radical point.

The Magi’s purported ability to change history invests Matthew’s scenario with a revolutionary concept: human agency. Prior to this, Israel’s hope for a Deliverer reflects the same passive position it takes in relationship to God. It watches and waits. God speaks and works. But the Magi see a star and, ascertaining its importance, they move without delay. Of the Nativity’s players, only they act without angelic directive. In a sense, they intrude on the story by making it their business to find Jesus. That’s not to say their involvement isn’t by divine providence, however. After inadvertently endangering Jesus’s life when they ask King Herod where they can find the King of the Jews, they do precisely what they’re known for: circumvent history. A dream alerts them that Herod plans to murder Jesus, and to ensure His safety, they defy the King’s request that they inform him where the Child is. They bypass Jerusalem, returning home another way. Matthew’s omission of any instructions in the dream makes clear they leave like they came—of their own volition. Acting solely on their agency, they bring something altogether new and dangerous to the Messianic equation. Matthew tells his readers salvation is a joint venture with God requiring our courage and active commitment.

Contrast

Ironically, it appears Matthew is rewriting history to include the Magi and Herod in his account. Historians find no evidence of the infant massacre that he claims directly resulted from the magicians’ disregard for the king’s wishes. Since the brutality of Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus by slaughtering every male baby in Bethlehem couldn’t escape notice, no existing record of it calls Matthew’s veracity into question. Yet supposing his Magi subplot is bald fiction, his integrity remains intact, because he leads us to contrast magicians with kings. Magicians act without asking. Kings ask before they act. Kings just so happen to make history. Magicians change history so what’s just happens. Magicians seek truth. Kings spread deceit. Matthew asks which we will emulate. Will we actively pursue the opportunity to seek and worship Christ? Or will we passively sit by, expecting to benefit from others who do?

Whether or not Matthew’s account is factual, placing people who don’t belong at Jesus’s crib makes it true. He eliminates any visitors other than the Magi simply to dramatize God’s infinite love and acceptance for those who come to Christ of their own volition. That’s the crux of Matthew’s story: faith is a willing act, not a command performance. “We observed His star at its rising, and have come to pay Him homage,” the Magi confess. (Matthew 2.2) The Gospel goes on to say, “When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” (v3) The very ones who should rejoice to hear their Messiah is born are terrified—and with good cause. They’re awaiting a ruler who divides and conquers, not one who wins the adoration of strangers, pagans, and wizards.

Belonging

On the strength of a new star, the Magi foresee a New Order that unites the world in harmony and peace. That’s a dangerous prospect for kings, nations, and people who leverage exclusion, labeling, and the hatred they spawn to nullify the legitimacy of anyone they choose. On the strength of a new star—and the fiber to act on what they see—the Magi take back the right to choose. They voluntarily leave palaces where they’re respected and venture into a lowly place where they clearly don’t belong. Their courage illuminates our understanding that not belonging is why they belong.

As we enter Advent’s final days, may we shed any remnants of kingly traits—all hesitance and fear—to embrace the Magi's mindset. May we fix our eyes on the star we’ve seen and exercise our right to discover where it leads. May we ask dangerous questions and take bold risks that alter history. And when our quest ends with paying homage to the Newborn King, may our awareness that many think we don’t belong there secure our conviction we’re exactly where we belong.

Blessed Redeemer, our Deliverer, we’ve seen Your star and willingly followed it without reservation. Equip us with courage to finish this journey. Bring us safely to Your sacred birthplace, where not belonging is why we belong. Amen.

While it would seem Jesus’s birthplace is nowhere for sorcerers, the Magi prove the opposite by actively seeking and worshipping Him. (James Tissot: The Journey of the Magi; 1894)

Postscript: “We Three Kings”

The famous carol gets it wrong; the Magi aren’t kings (and Matthew doesn't limit them to three). Yet it also gets this right: “King forever, ceasing never over us all to reign…”

All We Ask of Christmas

2011-12-14T16:20:00.004-06:00

One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD. (Psalm 27.4)

The Search

If we deconstruct The Nativity into two categories, one “Divine” and the other “Human,” dominant themes for each become apparent. The divine side is preoccupied with manifestation. God’s exquisite design is manifestly transmitted through supernatural media: angels everywhere, an astral phenomenon in the easterly sky, the unborn infant leaping in Elizabeth’s womb, and her impromptu prophecy to Mary. There’s no mistaking that Something Big is underway—the Biggest Something there ever was or ever will be, the Big Something everyone’s waiting for. So God removes any possibility for doubt. It’s manifestly obvious to all who receive the good news: This Is It.

The manifestations are writ large in headlines, with quick summaries attached. Mary’s told how she’ll conceive God’s Son, and that’s pretty much it. The rest is hers to figure out. The same goes for Joseph. His angelic dream instructs him to stand by Mary, yet offers no tactics to deal with the situation’s many intricacies. The Magi see the Eastern Star and realize what it signifies. But it’s not much more than a road sign hung in the sky; there’s no address attached. Angels declare Christ’s birth to shepherds, hasten them to Bethlehem, and inform them what to look for. Yet they don’t provide precise directions to the stable. So virtually every human in the Christmas story responds to these manifestations by looking for answers and guidance. Their column header is “The Search.” And for those who undertake it, the months, weeks, and hours leading up to the final manifestation are full of “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure.”

It’s tempting to question why God chooses to make good on the promise of a Savior in ancient times. Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until we get the whole mass communication thing down, so this good news can spread virally? I think God’s got more than breaking news in mind. The ancients’ limitations immunize them from a curse we can’t seem shake. They’re not nearly as flippant about things that can’t be naturally or logically explained. Narrow understanding broadens their vision. Thin facts amplify their aptitude for thin places, where reason’s failure makes blind trust the only option. For them, “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure” are unabashed confessions. Not knowing and feeling unsure don’t threaten them. Do they wish they’d been given more thorough directions? Probably. But since so much of their lives proceeds without explanation, they avoid the modern pitfall of procrastinating until every detail is explicitly defined and every possibility considered. (We theorize. They theologize.)

Seeing Christ

To illustrate the magnitude of differences between their era and ours, let’s run a few likely scenarios if God delayed Christ’s birth for our time. If we were Mary’s parents and knew her to be a truthful child, we’d still question why the angel told her to name the Child “Jesus,” but left no further instructions. If we were Joseph’s friends, we’d urge him to hold out for more information before moving too hastily. If we were the Magi’s colleagues, we’d laugh at the idea of trusting a star’s trajectory to guide them to Christ’s birthplace. If we were shepherds who missed the angelic concert, we’d tell the others they were crazy to go on a wild chase and risk getting fired. Those would be our gut reactions.

With more thought, we’d blow their stories to pieces. Hang on, Mary: Isaiah says the Messiah will be called “Emmanuel,” not “Jesus.” Hang on, Joseph: The Law says a man whose fiancée gets pregnant should put her to death. Hang on, Magi: The star rises in the East; Palestine is west. Hang on, shepherds: Israel’s Savior will come as a King, not a poor Infant in a manger. Maybe some register these objections. Yet with so few facts littering the searchers’ lives, these arguments carry less weight for them than they would for us.

Strange and inexplicable events inspire ancient minds to suspect divine activity. While their manifestations offer no advice, the searchers are all given the Child’s true identity. Mary’s told He’s God’s Son. Joseph learns He’ll be the Savior. The Magi’s star signifies He’s Israel’s King. The shepherds hear He’s Christ the Lord. That’s all they need to set off on their search, because all they want is to look on the Redeemer’s face. Just knowing Who He is drives their belief they will see Him. And they believe seeing Him will enable them to see everything differently.

Asking to See

Sight causes modern minds to believe. Ancient thought insists belief leads to sight. Psalm 27 begins with David declaring belief: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid… Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though wars rise up against me, yet I will be confident.” (v1,3) Then, in verse 4, we find him asking to see: “One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD.” Since David knows Whom he’s looking for, he knows exactly what he longs to see—the beauty of the LORD.

Surely by this stage in our Advent pilgrimage we have no doubt Whom we’re seeking—God’s Son, our Savior, Israel’s King, Christ the Lord, our Light and our Salvation. We’re long past fearing “I don’t know” and feeling threatened by “I’m not sure.” Argument’s armies and warring opinions can’t shake our belief we’ll arrive at the manger. Since that’s all we need to know, all we ask of Christmas is one thing: to behold the beauty of the Lord. Let those who assert that the Nativity is a myth live with their doubts. We’re not seeking literalism; we’re searching for Light. Let those who quibble with implausibility feed their addiction; we crave impossibility. We believe we will see Christ’s beauty, and that will forever change how we see. Isaiah 40.5 promises, “The glory of the LORD will be revealed.” We hazard our way to Bethlehem, driven by certainty we’ll find the impossible beauty awaiting us there. To behold it—that’s all we ask.

Impossibly Beautiful Child, conceive anew in us profound belief that leads us to sight. May these final days of Advent be fueled with determination to behold You. Draw all of us to the manger, eager to be astonished and changed. Amen.

One thought drives us to Bethlehem: to behold the beauty of the Lord.

Postscript: “Come Darkness, Come Light”

This reprises a video I made for an Advent post last year. Yet I think it speaks to the desire to see that drives our journey. I trust you’ll enjoy it.

a place where change looks possible

2011-12-13T08:59:00.005-06:00

Preface

Our church has taken “building a place” as this year’s Advent theme, and we’re doing just that. Each week a large set piece is added to the sanctuary—a pair of workhorses, wide doors, hayloft, and (soon to come) a manger—to suggest the construction of a stable and reinforce the idea of preparing a place for Christ to be born anew in us. An evocative musical number and cleverly insightful sketch set the stage for each sermon, whose title builds off “a place where”—printed in lower-case, subtly muting the racket affixed to Christmas so our contemplations are in scale with Bethlehem’s humility. It’s been a profoundly moving journey. And though there’s more to come, it well may have peaked with last Sunday’s message, “a place where change looks possible.” When our pastor, Joy Douglas Strome, finished, few eyes were dry and very few doubts remained that any of us will ever see Advent and Christmas the same way again. I was so stirred, my thoughts turned to all of you. With Joy’s permission, I’m sharing it here, in its entirety, conceding its power on the page can’t compare with her inspired delivery. Nonetheless, the sermon—which synthesizes Isaiah 61 and John 1.6-9, 19-28—has much to tell us and gives us much to think about. I trust you’ll take time to read it, and make time to sit with it, wrestle with it, and be blessed by it. If its impact here is half of what we experienced, my prayers in passing it along will be answered.

Weekly stable construction in the Lake View Presbyterian sanctuary: doors (L) and hayloft awaiting the hay delivery (R).

Prayer for illumination

O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. Ransom us, O God, as we sit captive to many things. Ransom us that we might be free to encounter your liberating Word this day, right now. Amen.

Being Changed

A double dose of most things would seem excessive, would call for restraint, might even be dangerous. But a double dose of John the Baptist in the wilderness delivered by our lectionary is clearly here to make a point about Advent. Last week from Mark, this week from the Gospel of John, we hear the story of John the Baptist, precursor to Jesus. Part of why it is hard to hear is because we think we should be getting on with things by now. Isn’t it time for carols and the Baby, the soft side of the story? No, not yet.

Thomas Merton wrote, ”The Advent mystery is the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.” Most of us would be undone by that, Many days I am undone by it. I suspect we’re all feeling off guard a bit by the notion that somehow we’re actually being transformed into Christ during Advent. That’s probably not what we signed up for. We want to see Christ. We’re glad for the story of angels and shepherds and Magi. We’re impressed with Mary’s courage, and Joseph’s commitment, and even God’s ingenuity with the delivery method for this important message. Still, we usually picture keeping our own human autonomy as we hear the story repeated for yet another year. We watch it unfold at a distance.

Merton would suggest that something a bit more lasting is happening, that in Advent we are actually being changed into something recognized as Christ. That is beyond the pale for most of us, and it’s easier to just hunker down and wait for the Christmas carols to finally come out. (And for those of you who are counting, they will come out next week.)

The One True Light

John came to testify to the one true light. That light would be Jesus, would be Christ, would be the Messiah. Even when everyone else around him seems confused, he seems to be comfortable with the job. The author of the gospel of John gives John the Baptist a little attitude and the conversation between John and the priests is almost funny. John sidesteps the questions with clever answers. He keeps them guessing about who he is and what his function will be.

John’s was the last of the Gospels to be written down, to the community that probably most needed to hear about testifying. But John the Baptist makes a bit of a mockery of their questioning: Who are you? Well, I’m not the Messiah. What then? Are you Elijah? I am not. Are you the Prophet? No. You’d think that he’d been coached by a good attorney, who warned, “Just answer the questions!” Then comes the breaking question: Well, then, who are you? I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness; make straight the way of the Lord. Well, if you are just a voice, they reason, why all the baptizing? It’s a trick question. He may be quoting Isaiah, but he isn’t authorized to perform this priestly function. But John the Baptist turns it around again: I’m just baptizing with water. The one who is coming after me? I’m not worthy to tie the thong of his sandal. No mention of fire, like last week. No mention of Holy Spirit. Just an allusion to the stature of the One Who will come after John.

John the Voice is out here doing his own thing, based on his belief that his singular job is to pave the way for God’s own Son to appear on the earthly scene. Did he know what that would be like? Well, partly. But he didn’t know everything, because if you remember, he ended up with his head on a plate. Surely if he would have known, he would have been more careful, don’t you think? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he was just faithful.

Big Ideas

Isaiah’s ideas are big ones. They become Jesus’ big ideas, too, when he starts his adult ministry—this idea about good news (which means “gospel”) to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. Prisoners in Isaiah’s day were either political prisoners or people in debt. No prison space was taken up by hardened criminals; criminals were taken care of another way, if you catch my drift. People in debt in prison might have family members that could pay “on time” to get them out. It was one of a number of rackets. And in a time when the oppressed were never out of debt, you know who it was in prison waiting for the good news that Isaiah, then Jesus promised.

Anyway, these big ideas sound lofty, they sound like something we want, and they are just poetic enough to capture our imagination. But most of the time, before we get too carried away with the prophetic call, our rational mind kicks in gear and says, “Really, can this happen?” Well, probably not in our lifetime. How do we have faith like John the Baptist had, when we run short of patience with the waiting, when our rational minds have seen one too many oil deals, one too many businesses collapse, one too many bailouts, one too many scams, one too many abused children, one too many corrupt politicians.

This week alone is enough to make us skeptical, isn’t it? More young people come forward in the Penn State mess, and another of our governors [Rod Blagojevich] is going to jail, and the judge says he ripped at the moral fabric of our society… That’s flowery language for we just don’t trust anyone much anymore.

Reason Needs Faith

Two different authors have helped me think about this this week. First is Theodoret, one of the Early Church leaders from the third century. He wrote about being able to perceive God’s light in this way:

To see visible objects we need the eyes of the body.

To understand intelligible truths we need the eyes of the mind.

To have the vision of divine things we cannot do without faith.

What the eye is for the body, faith is for reason.

To be more precise; the eye needs the light which puts it in contact with visible things; reason needs faith to show it divine things.

Reason would have us abandon the big ideas of our prophets for the most expedient, cost effective alternative. And most of the time that path does not bring about justice. Reason needs faith to show it divine things. That’s an interesting definition for faith… the ability to see divine things. And in John the Baptist’s case, it wasn’t just to see divine things, but to talk about them, interpret them, testify to them, and put his life on the line for them.

Open to the Divine

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote these provocative words about faith this week. She says:

Faith and hope can cancel each other out this time of year. Faith is radical trust in what God is doing, even when the divine mode of operation is far from clear… Hope, on the other hand, can easily assume the dimensions of individual and corporate wants. I hope for a white Christmas, a less contentious church, a closer relationship with Jesus, a God Who makes sense. While there is nothing wrong with any of these hopes, they still carry considerable cargo, suggesting that I know not only what my community and I need from God, but also how God might best come to us. The only hope that belongs on this Messiah table is the bare hope of God’s arrival, sweeping all clutter away.

For those of us who think we see pretty clearly what needs to happen to set everything straight in the world, this is sobering news. I think she is suggesting that faith means hanging on even when our idea of things is not coming to pass. Faith means hanging on beyond the time when reasonable people would have given up and gone home. Faith means the ability to see the sacred in the most profane places we can imagine. Faith means being open to the divine incoming in places we do not expect.

For some of us that means we open ourselves to the possibility that the divine could pop in on us at a board meeting in a big business… where we least expect God to be doing business. For some of us that means we open ourselves to the possibility that the divine might pop up in the most tangled up, corrupt political systems we could imagine… where we least expect God to be wheeling and dealing. For some of us that means we open ourselves to the possibility that the divine might pop up in our most contentious family dynamics, the ones that have us bluer than blue this season… a place where we have never had a divine experience before.

Truth be told, God showed up in first-century Bethlehem in a place where no one would have expected anything remotely divine to happen… and just look what happened.

John the Baptist’s faith—this ability to see divine things that were not even present yet—told him that change was coming, and it was possible that God would do a new thing. God would sweep away all the clutter, and make all things new. God would cause “righteousness and praise to spring up,” as Isaiah said.

Push

So what does this mean for you and me, ordinary players in this big drama of Advent? None of us will have the lead roles. The spotlight won’t shine on us individually. There are no lines for us to memorize, no costumes to gather, no anxiety about opening night. But we still have a part to play.

Most of us know well the role of being reasonable. But as Theodoret reminds us, reason needs faith to show it divine things. So maybe our job, our part this Advent is to take that to heart… to let our faith chip away at our own personal reasonableness… and let in the light of something new.

Jackie’s song [“Come to the Manger”] said, “In our darkest of hours wherever we are, the shadows are parted by the light from this star.” In the places where our own lives seem the most undone… can we push our faith to reveal something divine there… even just a little something? Alternatively, in the places where our own sureties about what is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white push us to be disgruntled and cynical most of the time… can we push our faith to reveal something divine there… even just a little something?

What worries me is that our reasonable natures might just make us miss something hugely divine, because we, like those of old, are looking for a king who will lead us into battle (and battle can be defined many, many ways), and God is choosing to work behind the scenes in a stable in Bethlehem.

Watching for It

All we have to go on are these old ancient words, and 2000 years of history of faithful people who have heard them and been led to believe. Evidence of the divine? It is around us. But we have to be watching for it.

It might not be obvious. It might be in the gentle hands of a nurse who is hooking us up to the IV right before we are wheeled in for surgery. It might be in the hug of a teacher who is paying attention to the child who is all of a sudden withdrawn. It might be in the beautiful chortles of a baby who has found her voice for the very first time. It might be in the wise counsel of a senior citizen who has experienced the world and then some. It might be in the patient parent, who has set aside many of their own needs for the years of parenting in order that a new, young life might be launched in a healthy way. It might be… well, as sure as I start to identify places, those won’t be the places you experience the divine or even I experience them again.

Harder than Lent

So, open is the key. Wherever our reasonableness has gotten a bit out of control, maybe there is the place to crack things open a bit. I’m not even sure how that sounds to you, or me for that matter. I like the idea of being open, but my heart is afraid. If I let myself be open to the divine, there could be a lot of other stuff that comes in with it, and that is very scary. Maybe we only like the idea of a sacred experience. What if we were to actually run into one?

Some people think Lent is the hard season, but I say no. This [Advent] is such hard work. In Lent we know exactly what’s getting ready to happen. We are headed to the cross, and there’s no going back, and afterwards the resurrection is going to be good news. But in Advent? We are headed to a manger, and a boy will be born into a world not all that unlike ours, full of danger, and heartache… Full of sorrow and missed opportunity… Full of people whose needs far exceed our ability to meet or give or serve.

The possibility of failing Advent is looming right before us. We could get right up to the door of the manger and freeze: Really. Do I want to go in and risk this? Do I want to look this child in the face and sign my name on the dotted line? Will I ever be able to make good on this promise? To be the ones who will harbor a Baby somewhere inside ourselves and let ourselves be changed? Do I really want to do this? What if I fail? What if I try and fail? What if I can’t muster the courage? What if I embarrass myself? What if I have to talk to people I don’t know? What if I have to help out kids or seniors? Or what if I have to listen to someone else’s pain? It’s so much harder than Lent.

A Dangerous Prospect

This birth requires something of us. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we are not building a stable that you get to look at. We are building a stable that we are inside. These are doors that open to the outside. And if it hasn’t hit you yet, this is a dangerous prospect.

We don’t get to be moved by the beautiful Christmas carols if we aren’t ready to take on the consequences of the birth, the care of a Baby. Unless we are willing to let all the clutter of our lives be blown away, then the trip to the manger has every possibility of being the most devastating thing we have ever done.

Peek over the edge of the manger and look, but don’t make eye contact—because one look and you will be changed. Everything that your reasonable mind will tell you can’t be will all of a sudden look possible. Everything that your reasonable mind would like to quantify and explain away will fall away and in its place will come big Bible ideas like glory, and justice, and righteousness and peace.

And if we have made eye contact with the baby, if we have opened ourselves to the divine, we will discover that reason isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Reason needs faith in order to show it divine things.

May reason scatter, so that divine things might come to us all. Amen.

Peek over the edge of the manger and look, but don’t make eye contact—because one look and you will be changed.

Postscript: “Come to the Manger”

This is the song that Jackie Jasperson, our church’s music director, exquisitely rendered prior to Joy’s sermon.

Open Casting

2011-12-11T06:57:00.005-06:00

For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61.11)

Whose Story Is It?

Every human holds a standing invitation to enter God’s story. God wants us there, actively participating in the epic drama of reconciliation. The divine casting call is wide open, and there’s room for actors of every gender, ethnicity, orientation, class, background, ability, etc. There are no auditions to find the most perfect player for a particular role, no competition with others, no anxious interims waiting to hear if we’ve been chosen. Talent, training, and prior experience—religious or otherwise—have no bearing on whether or not we get the job. God carves out unique spaces in the redemption narrative that only we can fill. We aren’t typecast. We’re created for purpose—born for the part.

We see this over and over in Scripture. In Jeremiah 1.5, God informs the writer, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” David reaches a similar conclusion in Psalm 139.15-16: “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” During the Last Supper, as Jesus finalizes His instructions to the disciples, He preempts any potential jockeying for star positions by reminding them, “You did not choose Me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in My name.” (John 14.16-17) Our role comes by divine appointment. When we say, “Yes,” to God, it’s ours.

Availability, not acceptability or adequacy, is the decisive factor. Since some remain unavailable to God’s purpose, the redemption saga evolves organically—with or without us. Awareness of that, combined with recognition that God invites all of us to assume roles we’re born to play, fosters an interesting offstage dynamic. By removing all barriers to our participation, God hands the issue of inclusion to us. We alone choose whether we take part in God’s story. Self-appointed casting directors who insist we’re unfit for roles we’ve been given are running a show that neither affects us nor interests God. We erase doubts about our acceptance and adequacy with two easy questions. Whose story is it? It’s God’s. Who decides if we’re part of it? We do.

At the Very Least, Most

Jesus debunks the myth of exclusion in Mark 10.45: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” The original Greek employs a word for “many” that emphasizes vast quantities—at very least, most—and implies those unavailable to God constitute the minority. And we get a snapshot of the overwhelming majority in Isaiah 61 (which figures prominently in Sunday’s Advent readings). The prophet writes, “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to release the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” (v1-2) It’s not a homogenized, well-adjusted crowd, but a startling convocation of survivors, refugees, outcasts, and criminals. Isaiah’s good news is directed to Jews returning from Babylonian exile. He declares God’s intention to restore their land and generate new growth. He says, “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.” (v11) How Jesus uses the passage in reference to inclusion, however, makes it really fascinating.

Jesus is invited to preach at His hometown synagogue in Nazareth. (Luke 4.16-30) He opens Isaiah 61 to explain His role in the redemption story—essentially repeating Mark 10.45: “I came to serve and save the masses.” This doesn’t sit well with Jesus’s childhood friends and neighbors, whose very existence rests on belief that conforming to a religious norm entitles them to rare privileges as God’s “elect.” They maintain insider status by shutting people out. They resist foreign oppression by oppressing strangers. They remedy heartbreak and abuse by hurting anyone unlike them. They assuage grief by causing it. Their notions of justice breed injustice. Now the greatest Teacher and Prophet their town ever produced looks them in the eye and says, “I’m anointed to gather everyone you’ve turned away.” Like many practitioners of Christian exclusion might do today, they answer Jesus’s call for inclusion and compassion by rejecting and attacking Him. They don’t just run Him out of town. They contrive to throw Him into a ravine. Jesus leaves them to their drama and walks away. He chooses not to participate, because it’s fruitless. Their story has no restorative power. It doesn’t nurture righteousness and praise.

The Choice We Make

Advent pushes us to discover why Jesus came by recalling how He came. Christ’s role in redemption commences as a needy, homeless Child. Other than two astutely brave parents, a handful of shepherds, and an entourage of curious pagans, no one is available to welcome Him. No one else takes the part he/she is born to play. They’re chasing other stories, doing other things, and while they’re obeying rules, courting favor, and being counted by a regime that counts them out, the greatest story ever told begins without them. They pass by and say, “No, thanks.” As a result, they never find out that the Babe they ignore comes to make Himself available to them—to welcome, heal, and free them of every sorrow and weakness hindering their availability to Him.

Christ’s sole purpose for entering our story is to invite us to enter God’s story. God doesn’t need us. God wants us. Our availability brings about restoration. It generates growth. Allowing other stories to affect or interest us bars our participation in the greatest story of all time. God has removed every barrier to roles we’re born to play. We’re part of the masses Christ comes to serve and save. Inclusion rests in our hands. How we handle it is our choice. And the choice we make determines if righteousness and praise spring up around us.

Homeless, Needy, Holy Child, we repent for all the times we’ve been unavailable to You. Forgive how easily we’re distracted by stories that neither affect us nor interest You. Refire our fervor to participate in Your story, to assume the roles we’re born to play. Make us catalysts of righteousness and praise. Amen.

God carves out unique roles for each of us and calls us to play the parts we’re created to play.

Postscript: “Somewhere”

I’m not a huge fan, but I must admit there are times when Barbra Streisand’s gifts border on prophetic. The power she invests in this classic song speaks to a day when we resist trivial distractions and take the roles we’re created to play.

Magnificent Things

2011-12-10T02:51:00.006-06:00

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me. (Luke 1.46-49)

The Talk of the Town

Let’s pretend we’re young women of 16 or so coming into our own in ancient Palestine. Our parents have brokered a splendid marriage contract with a good family, whose son, our husband-to-be, is well established in his faith and trade. With betrothal—a public rite confirming community consent to the union—behind us, our wedding is the talk of the town. For the moment, we’re our tiny hamlet’s closest thing to celebrity. Smiles and kind wishes greet us wherever we go. Our sense that the future couldn’t be finer deepens by the day, as does our gratitude when we think of brides whose families saddle them with uncaring, faithless men. We rarely get to ponder these joys, however. With so much to do before the wedding, fatigue is a constant companion and nightfall an unlikely friend. Its stillness gives us time to reflect before sleep bears us away on its soothing tide. Then, all too soon, daybreak rudely returns us to another task-ridden day.

Can it really be morning? It seems we hardly slept. Before opening our eyes, the room’s brightness and warmth raise the possibility we’ve been asleep for hours and hours, late into the day. How can that be? (We’ll ask this again and again.) We shield our eyes to glance around. The rest of the family hasn’t stirred. We peer into the light and gasp. It radiates from a being unlike any on Earth. We know it’s an angel sent by God. And we suspect we’re unprepared for whatever it harbingers, as we also know angels always bring life-altering news.

The angel greets us, saying we’re highly favored and God is with us. Its voice thunders with majesty that curiously flows over us like gentle water music. While we’re gripped by fear and wonder, the rest of the house sleeps on. How can that be? The angel tells us not to be afraid, and then relays news so terrifying it defies comprehension. “How can that be?” we ask, assuming virginity disqualifies us to bear God’s Son. The angel says we’ll conceive the Child after the Holy Spirit descends on us. First, what’s a “holy spirit?” We’ve never heard of such a thing. Second, it’s humanly inconceivable. Third, what the angel calls a great blessing sounds like a curse. We catch ourselves from asking how can that be and think this through. This is an angel. It speaks God’s will. What else can we do but submit humbly in service to God? The angel leaves us in chilly darkness. Hushed breath of parents and siblings nearby is deafening; they'll never believe they weren't awakened by what just happened. Nobody will believe this—not Joseph, his parents, no one in the synagogue, nobody. And it’s not a secret we can hide. In time, everyone will see. Being the talk of the town won’t feel so wonderful then.

A Huge Song

Mary’s first move is a smart one. She gets out of town. According to the angel, her cousin, Elizabeth, is beginning the third term of a miraculous pregnancy. Mary decides—correctly—that Elizabeth and her husband will be receptive to her news. As soon as she crosses their threshold, Elizabeth’s baby leaps for joy in her womb and she prophesies, echoing the angel’s declaration almost word for word. A song wells up in Mary, an impromptu hymn of praise that also expresses profound assurance. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” Mary sings. “For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” (Luke 1.46-49) Because we relate to Mary’s tangled emotions and unanswered questions, we hear her sing in a muted, melodious soprano. And we hear a simple, subtle tune—something closer to an Act Two reprise than a showstopper that rings down the Act One curtain. Yet the song’s lyrics and placement as the narrative’s first act closes suggest otherwise.

It’s a huge song full of huge feelings and ideas—an aria bursting with excitement and illumination, as Mary comprehends the scale of events thrust upon her. She bypasses her mind, where logic resides, and her heart, home of human intentions, to sing from her soul, where emotions live and flow freely. Her song is about releasing herself to God’s infinite wisdom and care. Her soul magnifies the Lord and her spirit—the God within her—rejoices. The sheer impossibility of what she must do convinces Mary it will be done. Why? Because God traffics in impossibilities. God brings down the mighty and exalts the lowly, Mary sings. God fills hungry hearts and sends those satisfied with riches away. God’s mercy endures the test of time, and God’s promises stand forever. Up to now, Mary’s only seen the enormity of her challenge and its enormous risks. All of that shatters, revealing a bigger, greater God behind the challenge, a God more than capable of managing risks. It’s a huge song full of huge feelings and ideas.

Magnificent Things

A thrilling realization turns up in Mary’s improvised verse. The Greek verb, “to magnify” (megalunó) derives from the word Mary uses to describe the “great” things God has done for her (megas). When we release ourselves to God’s infinite wisdom and care—bypassing human logic and intentions so our soul is free to magnify God and our spirits can breathe joyfully—magnificent things happen. We can’t help but sing. The angel’s final words to Mary become our life’s theme: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1.37) God purposefully designs insurmountable challenges and inevitable risks to be shattered, so that God’s supreme power can be revealed in and through us. Facing sheer impossibility is the most reliable indicator that God will do what can’t be done.

The only thing that hinders God’s ability to do magnificent things for us is our reluctance to magnify God. As long as we keep God in a box constructed of our reasoning and reasons, impossibilities box us in on all sides. We negotiate with ourselves, leveraging all sorts of excuses why God’s plan won’t work. We pull out sorry songs we should have thrown out ages ago. We disqualify ourselves before God finishes explaining how we’ll succeed. If it involves something we’ve not heard of or can’t possibly achieve without God, we mistake God’s blessing for a curse. We put more faith in our predictions than God’s promises. Mary’s aria is soul music. It’s bigger and greater than any song she’s ever sung, and she sings it in a big way. It closes Act One’s conflicts and rushes toward Act Two’s magnificence. Sing Mary’s song.

We magnify You from our souls, Most Magnificent God. Our spirits rejoice in You. Every impossibility You bring to us is another opportunity for You to reveal Your magnificence to us, in us, and through us. Teach us to sing like we’ve never sung before. Make Your infinite power our lives’ theme. Amen.

As long as we keep God in a box, our reasoning and reasons will keep us boxed in. But when our souls magnify the Lord, magnificent, completely out-of-the-box things happen.

Postscript: “Magnificat”

Bach’s unsurpassed rendering of Mary’s song needs no occasion. But seeing as we’re here…

Repost: Called to Hope

2011-12-07T00:05:00.007-06:00

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. (Ephesians 1.18)

How’s Your Hope?

I confess an odd sort of ambivalence about hope. Unlike faith and love—the other two abiding principles that complete Paul’s triumvirate in 1 Corinthians 13—hope strikes me as a slippery concept. Faith and love are easier to get our arms around, because Jesus and the epistle writers provide a plethora of definitions for them. On the other hand, as often as the word hope appears—180 times in the NIV—I’ve yet to find one verse that says, “Here’s what hope is.” Tracking down the Hebrew and Greek words only confuses things. Old Testament “hope” derives from “cord” or “rope,” indicating it’s a thing we hold and trust while we wait. New Testament “hope” is more straightforward: “expectation.” That gets to the nub of my consternation. When David says, “I hope for Your deliverance” (Psalm 119.166), he means, “I’m hanging on.” When Paul encourages us to “Rejoice in hope” (Romans 12.12), he wants us to exult in what we expect God will do. Where I come from, hanging on is one thing and exultation is another.

Imagine my perplexed response when thinking about hope brought this to mind: How’s your hope? I had no answer, as I had no idea what I’d asked myself. I fired back, “What do you mean?” (I have these testy inner dialogues from time to time.) Was I wondering about my tenacity to believe or my ability to expect? “All of it,” I heard myself say. “How's that going?” I didn’t like the question one bit. Truth be told, I don’t work too much on hope. I’m confident I have it. I expect God’s goodness and mercy in all things. As a rule, I trust God when I’m left hanging. Yet hope seldom captivates my thoughts. I’ve settled for having it instead of doing it, twisting it into a limbo lobby, a type of suspended optimism I hang with until something actually happens. Is that hoping? It sounds more like loitering. Now I realize why the hope I project on Advent texts feels ambiguous and thin. I’m not seeing the writers and figures do hope. I’ve got them idling—albeit excitedly—until the show starts, and that’s not what they do, since that's not what hope is.

Before Our Stories Happen

Hope is a tough concept for us because we take its operative principles less seriously than our ancestors. Modern cynicism and self-sufficiency lend credence to “promises are made to be broken.” Nowadays, it’s bad form to hold people to their word. Often out of grace, but also to escape appearing needy—Heaven forbid we rely on someone—we overlook most bad promises. (Forgiving them is a conversation for another time.) We forget that little to no faith in promises produces little to no hope. To guard against disappointment, we view hope suspiciously, which is exactly not what it’s for. Hope is given to nurture confidence in promises until they’re honored. The ancients understood hope more clearly. In their day, the burden of hope rested on the promise's maker, not its taker, because they had no alternative to depending on one another. If the farmer didn’t deliver promised grain, no one ate bread. If the weaver didn’t produce promised cloth, everyone wore rags. Promises held the world together. Hope made it spin. Their combined gravity secured daily life. That’s why God’s promises and our hope form the braid—the cord—that ties Scripture together, and why we’re consistently told to be true to our word, even as our Creator honors promises to us.

Rethinking hope as an active pursuit rather than passive—possibly futile—occupation also reveals its hidden beauty. It’s the key to entering our stories before they happen. It puts us where we want to be ahead of actually getting there. Reality-clouded intellect would have us dismiss canny hope as callow fantasy. To go through life hanging on promises, fully expecting they’ll come to pass, seems naïve and weak-minded. We’ve even coined a euphemism for it: living in denial. Paul challenges this, asserting hope is the sign of hard-won, inner strength: “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame.” (Romans 5.3-5) Yes, hardship builds character. But ending the process there limits involvement in our narrative to the moment it calls for character. True strength becomes evident when trust in God’s promises presses us to finish the sequence—to muster the guts to hope. According to Ephesians 1.18, that’s what God hopes we’ll do: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.” We are called to hope. While murky minds don’t see it, our enlightened hearts recognize we have a place in our story long before promises we rely on come about.

Arriving

Look at the characters arriving at the Christ-Child’s manger. Need we ask what brings them there? Every one of them, from Mary and Joseph to the Magi to the lowliest shepherd, lands in this filthy barn on wings of hope. They embrace God’s promises and act on them. They leave what they know behind—friends and families, palaces and pastures—answering God’s call to hope. Terrible outcomes cannot be ruled out. Obeying God’s call could end with Mary and Joseph being stoned as fornicators. Seeking Christ’s birthplace could result in the Wise Men’s arrest as covert insurgents. After abandoning their flocks to worship the Savior, the shepherds could return to find their livestock stolen, lost, or destroyed. Yet not one of us would consider any of the Holy Infant’s attendants delusional or weak-minded. They’re paragons of insight and strength!

Hope makes arriving at God’s promises possible and vindicates us from doubts and criticism along the way. God calls us to hope—to enter our stories with God, to follow God in active expectancy, to pursue God’s promises with enlightened hearts. Hope takes us where we’re headed before we get there. It’s what proves strength of character forged in hardship. Hope is what we do, leaving everything we know behind and trusting every risk we take will be rewarded. So how is your hope? How's that going?

O God, our Help in ages past, our Hope for years to come, we have heard your call to hope. Place in us a will to hope, to do the things hope asks of us, to live hope. Amen.

Originally posted on December 3, 2010.

Hope enables us to enter our stories before what we hope for appears. Its radiance rises over the horizon and lights our way.

Postscript: "My Hope is in You"

To do hope is to invest hope in a God Who will not disappoint. Aaron Shust beautifully renders this idea in "My Hope is in You."

Getting Through

2011-12-06T06:38:00.003-06:00

If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. (Job 14; KJV)

Until Change Comes

I guess it was weird. I didn’t realize it, but when I pull back and watch myself, I can see why it might have struck others as, oh, I don’t know, unusual. I was 12, a bit of a nerd, a little sissified, inching ever closer to my snob phase, acting older than my years and thinking I was older than I acted—in other words, that kid who finds other kids too annoying to spend time with, who’s happiest by himself. I’d recently undergone a major sea change. In a preemptive strike against rock-and roll, a family friend gave me Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace for my birthday. I’d grown up with gospel music. But I’d never heard anything like this. I played it constantly, full-blast, in my room. (I was in heaven; the rest of the house wasn’t.) Soon I was cajoling anyone with a car to drive me around Chicago, to mom-and-pop record shops and churches where I could hear live performances of this music I’d rapidly come to love. Since no kid I knew was pursuing my obsession—or chasing another with comparable single-mindedness—I suppose it was weird. But, oh my, was it wonderful.

My connection with the music was forged with hymns and songs I knew. As I immersed myself in the worship experience, however, I grew increasingly aware that many of the semantics, which spilled out of the music into the liturgy and preaching, held less resonance for me than other worshipers. Unlike the expansive melodies and rhythms they float on, black gospel lyrics are tightly packed. They draw on a narrow lexicon of key words and phrases, most originating in spirituals that lift texts and imagery from the King James Bible and reset them, unadorned, in the context of slavery and freedom. Having been deeply imbedded into African-American faith culture, they retained their currency and spoke for themselves, often in emotions that defied explanation.

A lot of lyrics, for obvious reasons, alluded to Israel’s liberation from Egypt. But Job was also well represented, frequently in the phrase, “wait until my change come,” taken from Job 14.14: “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” (KJV) Whenever the phrase surfaced—in song, sermon, or testimony—the church surged. People shouted, “Amen!” and “Go ahead!” Some leapt to their feet, arms stretched to heaven, faces upturned, as if to soak in life-giving rain. Tears of joy often streaked their cheeks. Their unfiltered emotions removed any barriers to feeling what they felt. Still, I couldn’t wrap my head around the phrase’s effect. There were dozens of songs about waiting. The impact plainly lived in “my change,” and not for the life of me could I figure what it meant—not in a sense that would trigger so profound a reaction, that is. There had to be something to it. And there was.

Faith Expressed in Uncertainty

Because of what I experienced, Advent’s invitation to wait—to contemplate waiting as a spiritual principle and discipline—always leads back to Job. The wonder of Job, for me, is his ease with wondering. To be the Bible’s oldest book, its eagerness to question and grapple with big ideas feels very modern. The story’s tensions play out vertically, as Job searches for insight into God’s purpose for tragedies that inexplicably ruin him, and laterally, as he resists the simplistic counsel of friends hoping to clarify his predicament. After losing his family, wealth, and health—on a whimsical bet between God and Satan, no less—his buddies come around to explain what God meant by doing this to him. While each has his own theory about Job’s reversal of fortune, all three are certain God has spoken. Job’s not so sure about that. He won’t rule out the possibility God is speaking, and his sudden plunge into hardship isn’t the end for him, but the pivotal transition to a new beginning. The longer his friends rattle on the surer Job is that he’s right, and the more intense his conversations with God become.

Grief, homelessness, poverty, and painful affliction—their grip on Job weakens until they’re no more than irritants distracting him from what’s really going on. It’s apparent to him he’s locked in a holding pattern, and why that is concerns him less than what it means. He even ponders the idea that waiting is all there is. Perhaps the promise of newness is a red herring, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow hidden behind his storms. “If it takes the rest of my days,” he says. “I’ll wait until my change comes.” The faith expressed in his uncertainty is a thing of beauty. He submits to what he doesn’t know and can’t understand, confessing, “Who knows what I’m waiting for? Maybe it will come. Maybe it won’t. There’s only so much time left for me to wait on whatever it is. Since that’s all I know, all I know to do is wait until my change comes.”

An Evolution Occurring Within

As it turns out, I’m not the only one puzzled about what Job means by “change.” Indeed, Job’s so hazy about what he’s trying to convey he describes a process rather than a result. This is one of the rare times when the King James Version comes closer to the original than its successors. More recent translations opt for “renewal,” “release,” and “resurrection.” But Job uses a derivative of chalaph, a Hebrew word meaning, “to pass through, move past, pierce, sprout, or sweep.” It’s a forward-looking term often associated with growing up or leaving behind—letting go. Thus, Job isn’t holding out for a life-altering moment, an epiphany of some sort, or another sudden change to undo the previous one’s damage. He’s not waiting for a revolution. He’s getting through his doubt and despair, fully aware of an evolution occurring within him, even while he waits to discover where it will lead. He’s growing up, letting go. If that’s as far as his wait takes him, that’s enough. He may die before his change breaks through in sprigs of newness. Yet Job senses newness already happening inside him. If waiting is all there is, getting through it will change him, regardless if he can prove he’s been changed.

So it also turns out I misread the reactions that piqued my curiosity about this passage. The intense rejoicing it sparks arises from knowing that to wait is to change, from sensing God is already at work in us below the surface, from confidence we’re growing up and letting go while getting through the wait. Another phrase I hear when worshiping with my African-American faith family goes, “I’m not what I should be. But, thank God, I’m not what I used to be.” That’s waiting in a nutshell. Who we are today is not who we’ll be tomorrow. Who we are tomorrow won’t be the same the day after that. Getting through. Letting go. Sprouting. Changing. Waiting. We may not be what we should be. But if we learn to wait, we will never be what we were. Thank God for the wait.

God of perpetual change and constant motion, please remind us that waiting is changing, that You move constantly in us, even though we think we’re stuck in holding patterns and standing still. Teach us the fine art of knowing what we can’t feel and feeling what we can’t see. We’re waiting—and we thank You for the wait. Amen.

To wait for change is to experience change. It’s a forward-looking process that begins below the surface long before any visible signs emerge.

Postscript: “Lord, Help Me To Hold Out”

Just one of many uplifting gospel songs resounding with Job’s faith in uncertainty—this one performed by a virtual constellation of gospel greats, all of them intimately acquainted with profound changes we undergo during the wait.

No Better Way

2011-12-05T06:35:00.004-06:00

Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2.4-7)

Marketable Allure

How easily our romance with the Nativity slips into sentimentality! We start with two young people inadequately prepared for the task God assigns them, making bold decisions based on visions and dreams. Other than Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, and her husband, Zachariah—who empathize with her, as they’re also dealing with a miraculous conception—the Gospels mention no family or community support. Even if loved ones support them, they’re nowhere to be found when Mary and Joseph need them most. God’s plan draws them away from home and strands them in an overcrowded village, where no one cares about them. They do their best with what they’ve got, which is next to nothing. Against all odds, they bring a healthy Child into the world. As they cope with what must seem like an insurmountable crisis, our focus is diverted to simultaneous events. Beyond Bethlehem’s walls, angels sing glad tidings to shepherds. In Jerusalem, prominent foreigners consult King Herod about Christ’s birth, first brought to their attention by an astronomical anomaly. The terrified new parents see none of this.

When the odd assortment of strangers converges on the lowly stable, our movie-fed reflexes kick in. We push the tiny barn from its secluded back lot, anchor it on a sleepy street, and tidy things up to make it presentable. We tamp down the dirt floor, shovel out the manure, rid the feed cribs of rats, and de-louse the livestock. Before the guests arrive, we make sure to discard bloody evidence of childbirth, bathe mother and Child, substitute a downy white comforter for torn rags binding the Infant’s movement, put both parents in fresh clothes, and iron out the exhaustion, stress, and panic creasing their faces. Presto! The mean reality of Christ’s birth is neatly revised for distinctly Western, middle-class, marketable allure, readily amenable to Christmas cards, kiddie pageants, and easily offended children of all ages.

Appallingly Substandard

Had it been possible to photograph the scene, we’d be so shaken by what it revealed that waves of horror and nausea would crush us. We’d have to ask, “What is God thinking?” It’s not enough for Jesus to be born when the most ideal birth scenarios are ghastly primitive. No, God works overtime to see Mary delivers the Child in conditions that the poorest, most disadvantaged mothers of her day would find appallingly substandard. We cringe to question God’s judgment, but outrage forces us to ask again, “What is God thinking?” It’s a question that God must welcome, though, given what its answer reveals.

By necessity, Jesus must live a lowly life. To make clear the God in Him stoops to reach us, our atonement can never be dismissed as a noble act of human kindness. We get all of that. Still, was it really necessary to subject Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to such horrible extremes? Surely there’s a better way to do this. After all, we’re talking about God here—our God of endless options, infinite wisdom, and incomparable power. If this was God’s Plan A, there had to be at least one Plan A+ that didn’t strip the Child and His parents of all dignity and pride. We can go down that road over and over—adjusting the math, tinkering with variables, inventing comparable confluences of theology, history, and science. Yet every time we’ll land at the same conclusion: there is no better way. For Jesus’s death to set new standards for love, tolerance, and mercy, His birth must be scarred by indifference, isolation, and disgrace. The intricately detailed symmetry is simply divine.

Compassion That Rocks the World

The Nativity and Crucifixion are two halves of a whole, both brutally demeaning, yet brilliantly decisive. Together they prove God brooks no middle ground to repair our broken relationship. It’s an all-or-nothing covenant founded on God’s desire to restore all we’ve lost, even though nothing we do warrants divine favor. In Philippians 2, Paul writes, “Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (v4-8) Christ’s sacrifice begins in Bethlehem, where Jesus opens His eyes to a birthplace unfit for a slave, and culminates at Calvary, where He shuts them on a lowlife’s cross. From the start, Christ renounces divine stature to attain our deepest despair.

Before placing Christmas’s cruelty on par with Good Friday’s atrocities, let’s consider the physics of God’s plan. Every human weakness God abhors springs from our unholy craving to come out on top. It pollutes us and our filth cascades on those we presume beneath us. Sin’s gravity (in every sense) is why there’s no better way—why there can be no middle ground. It’s why Paul says Christ “emptied Himself.” Since that’s the lowest one can possibly go, to claim superiority of any kind is to exalt oneself above Christ.

Bethlehem is where Christ unleashes a tide of compassion that rocks the world off its axis. High-low status gives way to a tableland where all stand equally, side-by-side. It’s as Isaiah 40 says: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (v4-5) The Nativity’s unspeakable sorrow spawns indescribable joy when we see how low Christ goes to free us of inequities, rejection, and despair. Christmas is the defining moment when the Word Made Flesh stands at the foot of sin’s corrosive cascade and swallows it up with God’s free-flowing love, acceptance, and grace. (Cue the angels: it's time to sing!)

Prepare our hearts and grant us courage, O Christ, to arrive at Bethlehem with clear eyes. May your glory be revealed in the splendor of what transpires in the filthy stable, instead of the sentimental, sanitized spectacle we’ve been sold. May the extreme lowliness we witness cure our unholy drive to be on top and heal the wounds inflicted on us by sin’s corrosive cascade. Amen.

Sentimentalizing the Nativity sanitizes its actuality—hindering our realization of how low Christ had to go to put an end to sin’s inequities and despair.

Waiting to Be Found

2011-12-04T01:08:00.006-06:00

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by Him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. (2 Peter 3.14-15)

Not Pretty

Friday before last, I mentioned to my pastor that I’d scanned the lectionary for the first Sunday of Advent. “Not pretty,” I said, referring to Mark 13’s “Little Apocalypse.” (See The Tender Time below.) “All of this year's Advent is like that,” she sighed. “Turning the gloom and doom into something that builds hope and faith will be a challenge.” Opening Sunday’s readings, I see what she meant. The Old Testament texts—Isaiah 40 (“Comfort my people”) and Psalm 85 (“Righteousness will go before Him”)—nicely synch up with the Mark 1’s Gospel: “Prepare the way of the Lord”. But the real meat turns up in 2 Peter 3.8-15, which is full of the same kind of nightmarish imagery that made tough-going of last week’s Gospel. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief,” verse 10 says, “and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.” Not pretty. Or so it seems until we set the pyrotechnics aside and consider the pertinent question rising out Peter’s sulfurous clouds.

The Context of Their Lives

Although he's discussing the day of the Lord—i.e., the end of time—in vivid detail, Peter's teaching vigilance. And one of the odder aspects of his decidedly odd approach is how casually he predicts we’ll go out with a big bang that blows the heavens and earth to smithereens. Such prospects don’t frighten him one bit. Nor is he concerned about frightening his readers. Since the Early Church spends every moment watching for Christ’s return, time can’t end soon enough for them; they eat this apocalyptic stuff up. Yet Peter’s not all that interested in feeding their Second Coming fixation. He’s providing pastoral nurture for Christian living. He deliberately sets his remarks in an end-time context because that’s the context of their lives.

It’s a mistake to hear Peter’s cataclysmic predictions and lump him and his readers with Christians who abdicate present priorities to fantasize about a future finality. Without certainty when Christ will come, Peter says time is of the essence. We must be present and accounted for now. In light of our perceived shortness of time, he poses a perceptive question: “What sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God?” (v11-12) He reprises his day-of-the-Lord scenario, keeping before us the urgency to remain vigilant until Jesus comes. Then he gives us the answer in verses 14-15: “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by Him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

At Peace

Peter sets loose some really big ideas in this passage: holiness and godliness; pursuing lives uncompromised by clumsy stains and nagging imperfections; viewing our allotted time to wait for Christ’s appearance as a literal grace period, when preparing the way of the Lord opens us to the Lord’s way. The nub of Peter’s counsel surfaces when he says, “While you’re waiting, strive to be found by Him at peace.” Exaggerated expectancy for Christ to come and lift us out of our anguish is the surest route to anxieties that defeat why Christ comes—as a mortal Infant, our eternal Lord and King, or the gentle Savior Who gives rest to our souls. We want to rush Christ’s arrival to ease our suffering. Yet impatience hobbles our vigilance. We overlook the legacy of peace Jesus wills to us in John 14.27: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Waiting impatiently for Christ to establish peace on Earth robs us of peace Christ offers us now.

Advent rehearses Israel’s anticipation of the Messiah as our means to discover the two-fold nature of Christ’s coming. The road to Bethlehem is as much about waiting to be found at peace as finding the Prince of Peace. It’s learning that miracles take time, and fretting about why we must wait to hold them in our arms only unnerves us. Advent guides us to realize nothing God does ever goes as we expect, yet when we reach grace’s destination, everything we need is there. It’s a stable, not a palace. It’s the delivery of a needy Infant, not the mighty Deliverer we think we need. It’s an angel choir in the country, not an extravaganza in the city square. It’s brought to us on a humble donkey, not an intimidating steed.

The vigilance Peter encourages looks inward. It illuminates tiny beginnings and thin places, not booming climaxes and epic canvases. Bethlehem proves that. For centuries, Israel sits on edge, watching for the first sign of an awesome spectacle. When it unfolds, Jesus comes so quietly and unobtrusively they don’t believe in Him. In similar fashion, those anxiously awaiting an over-the-top Second Coming may be too underwhelmed to recognize it when it happens. If they’re right, and it's as earth-shattering as they predict, we’ll all be thrilled. But suppose it’s not what they expect. Will they be ready for that? Peter teaches us the importance of watching wisely while we wait. If we abuse the promise of Christ’s coming to percolate grandiose expectations and gratuitous excitement, we’ll not be found at peace when Christ appears.

God of tiny beginnings and thin places, turn our eyes from what we impatiently expect, so we may discover what’s waiting to happen inside us. Heal our addiction to anxiety and overkill. Come to us in Your own quiet magnificence and find us at peace. Amen.

Advent is as much about waiting to be found at peace as finding peace when Christ appears.

Postscript: “Waiting…”

Preparing the way of the Lord by opening ourselves to the Lord’s way will result in waiting to be found at peace.

Repost: Comfort

2011-12-02T15:57:00.009-06:00

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40.1-2)

A Deep Breath

The 40-day period between the Resurrection and Ascension intrigues me. The Gospels and Acts report several interactions between Jesus and His disciples, but we don’t observe Him doing much beyond issuing last-minute instructions. While Paul asserts one of these encounters involves 500 people (1 Corinthians 15.6), neither the Gospels nor Acts chronicle it. He spends His final days on Earth behind the scenes, preparing His closest followers to continue His ministry after He leaves. And there’s no record anywhere of a major public appearance where He announces He’s risen to life to the masses. This strikes us as a bit surprising, since Christianity hinges on faith in Jesus’s resurrection. We might think He’d seize every chance to be seen by as many as possible—until it occurs to us if His resurrection were a verifiable fact, faith would be irrelevant. Jesus stays out of the public eye because His mission centers on ending our reliance on what we know by requiring us to trust what God says. “Whoever believes shall have eternal life,” He says in John 3.16.

Instead of an historically definitive event, the pivotal moment comes in John 20.21-22: “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” He uses a fairly innocuous gesture to transfer power to the disciples. He inspires them exactly as God first inspired humanity. With one breath, He fills them with His presence, His gifts, nature, and authority. Jesus explains they’re receiving the Holy Spirit—the Comforter Who, as He promised, “will guide you into all truth.” (John 16.13) Yet note why He breathes the Holy Spirit into them: “I am sending you.” The Spirit’s comfort and counsel aren’t only for the disciples’ edification. Henceforth, they carry It with them wherever they go and express It in calm assurance conveyed in their demeanor and words. They’re now able to bring Christ’s presence to any situation and change the atmosphere around it with no more than a deep breath.

A Most Unusual Message

When God directs Isaiah to “comfort My people… Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” He’s invoking the prophet’s capacity to bring solace and clarity to Israel’s turmoil. Repeatedly God has pressed God's people to obey and repeatedly they’ve failed. By the time Isaiah comes on the scene, their stubbornness has pummeled them with sorrow. Recovering from 70 years of exile and hardship, they’re punch-drunk, exhausted, and despondent as they see their hope, like Jerusalem itself, lay in ruins. In times past, prophets predicted doom and destruction if Israel didn’t mend its ways. But God calls Isaiah to restore the nation’s faith and ease its worries. God commands the prophet to proclaim their troubles are ending, their sins are forgiven, and God's repaying their repentance twice over with God's love and mercy. This is a most unusual message delivered by a most unusual prophet who views his responsibilities in a most unusual manner.

Isaiah describes his mission this way: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” (61.1) His compassion is so remarkable Jesus quotes him verbatim to define His ministry in Luke 4.18. And He essentially condenses it when He breathes on the disciples. He endows them with the Holy Spirit and sends them into the world to preach, to heal, to liberate people in distress. “Comfort my people; speak tenderly to them,” God tells Isaiah. Jesus vests the disciples with the Comforter so they can do the same.

Tenderly

We too have drawn the breath of Christ into our beings. We’ve also received the Holy Spirit and been sent into the world. We too can provide solace and clarity to troubled lives. Because the Comforter dwells in us, we have the capacity to make Its presence felt in every situation we enter. The confidence expressed in our behavior and the words we speak—words carried on inspired breath—have the ability to change the atmosphere around us. Yet if we limit our perceptions of what the Spirit within us can do and how we manifest Its power to our problems alone, we negate Jesus’s purpose for giving It to us.

We’ve received a most unusual message that must be delivered in a most unusual way. Our faith in Christ’s resurrection convinces us of His power to restore life. We’ve experienced it in our own lives. Thus, there are no lost causes and no one is beyond redemption. It’s our privilege to comfort God’s people—to assure them God has their problems in hand, God's forgiven them and will repay the costs of their mistakes twice over. Though much of their anxiety results from stubborn disregard for God, others, and themselves, we honor our calling to comfort them by resisting urges to confront or condemn them. “Brutal honesty” is an oxymoron; since it justifies wounding someone’s spirit as a method of healing, it’s patently dishonest. It’s best we leave that sort of “comfort” to self-deluded haters and old-school prophets. We provide comfort in a manner that pleases our Maker and reflects the Comforter’s presence in us—in a word, tenderly.

God of tender, loving kindness, make the Comforter's presence in us vividly known to us. May words of compassion, mercy, and healing come as naturally to us as our breath. Impress on us Your will that we comfort Your people. Amen.

Originally posted 12/12/09.

We speak tender words that neither confront nor condemn. We comfort.

Postscript: "Comfort Ye My People"

Possibly my favorite piece from the Messiah. Other than that "Hallelujah" tune, of course, and "Lift Up Your Heads," and "Surely He Hath Borne Our Grief," and... Oh, never mind.

Our Children and Their Children

2011-12-01T02:06:00.004-06:00

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. (Deuteronomy 4.9)

The Photo That Brought AIDS Home

About a year ago, I crossed paths with Therese Frare, a staggeringly gifted photographer in the Pacific Northwest. I was part of a team working on a new HIV product launch to occur less than a month before the 30th anniversary of the first AIDS diagnoses. The serendipitous timing opened the door to include a retrospective of the extraordinary leaps in HIV/AIDS treatment and reaffirm our client's contributions as a major leader in the field. We wanted Therese to photograph the event for a number of reasons. Her talent spoke for itself, and when we approached her about taking the job, the conversations revealed her to be an ebullient, sharp-minded person—someone we’d enjoy working with. Her role on this particular job would be particularly significant, though, as she holds a unique position in HIV/AIDS history.

In 1990, during graduate studies in photography at Ohio University, Therese volunteered at Pater Noster House, an AIDS hospice in nearby Columbus. An assignment for a visual storytelling class led her to ask one of the patients, David Kirby, and his caregiver, Peta—an AIDS patient himself—if she could document their experiences with the affliction. After some justifiable resistance from the hospice (due to patient privacy concerns), Therese was cleared to shoot David and Peta’s interactions. David was in end-stage, meaning Peta’s main concern was making his final days as comfortable as possible. On one occasion, Therese was at the hospice when Peta was called to the young man’s bedside. Seeing his parents there, she discretely waited in the hall. His mother asked Therese to come in, telling her, “We’d like you to photograph the family saying their final goodbyes to David.” As the heart-wrenching scene played out, Therese stood in a corner, capturing it moment-by-moment. While proximity to the event muted her appreciation of her photographs’ power, David’s expressed desire that his story be told inspired Therese to mail copies of one shot to the World Press and Life magazine. Life immediately picked it up and published the picture in its November 1990 issue. It’s now known the world over as “the face of AIDS” and “the photo that brought AIDS home.”

Dark Shadows

When Therese’s photograph appeared, we were ending the AIDS crisis’s first decade. We’d seen a multitude of images of the virus’s emaciated victims—from iconic celebrities like Rock Hudson to nameless African children—and heard hundreds of agonizing stories. Those of us cursed to witness AIDS’ ravages up-close and personal were emotionally depleted, but for seething anger at how little concern was shown for the lives devastated by the disease. Like every other catastrophic illness, an AIDS diagnosis triggered a ripple effect that emanated from the patient to loved ones nearest him/her, then on to more casual friends and acquaintances, and finally into her/his various professional and social circles. Because its first US targets were gay men—many with long histories of casual promiscuity—it was all too easy to minimize AIDS suffering as a minority issue. The public at large felt safely insulated from its threat and, therefore, not responsible for its treatment, containment, or cure. This false sense of security was further enhanced when the virus began surfacing in other specific populations: blood-transfusion patients, IV drug abusers, sex workers, and so on. AIDS was a “not-us” sickness, and hence “not our problem.” Therese’s photograph changed that.

For the first time, people removed from AIDS’ realities stepped into its dark shadows. Fathers felt Mr. Kirby’s anguish, as he cradled his son's gaunt face and clung to his rail-thin arm. Mothers perceived the stormy emotions raging behind Mrs. Kirby’s stoic expression, while she pulled David’s kid sister—confused, frightened, a child too young to know such sorrow—to her bosom. The emptiness in David’s eyes led one to imagine, for all practical purposes, he was already gone before this final farewell. It pierced the heart of every mother’s child. The anonymous hand reaching into the scene softly spoke of someone outside the family with compassion and courage to touch the dying man—of someone who chose to be there. Above them, the outstretched, nail-scarred hands of Jesus beckoned David into His eternal care, promising to hold the wounded hearts he left behind. This was too real—too personal—to ignore. Therese’s photograph allowed millions around the world to see what we who’d had sat at far too many bedsides had seen. Never again would they look on AIDS in any other way.

Sacred Duty to Remember

Twenty years later, our hearts overflow with gratitude for God’s mercy and provision. Medical breakthroughs have diminished AIDS’ savagery. How thankful we are that horrific scenes like David Kirby’s are rare exceptions and no longer the rule. We no longer speak of an “AIDS holocaust” and rarely do we see images of AIDS-related suffering. Yet in our rejoicing, we must not confuse AIDS’ disarmament with decisive defeat. Its status as a treatable condition on par with hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses introduces the peril of assuming AIDS is no longer a grave disease to be avoided at all costs—that it can be “lived with” and its threat has decreased. Worst of all, we can never conclude that its relative invisibility in the media and our daily environment means AIDS has “gone away.” It is present to the point of prevalence. It is very real and, until it’s completely destroyed, it’s not going away.

We who survived AIDS’ initial onslaught have a sacred duty to remember, honoring the thousands of precious souls prematurely torn from our midst. Yet our sacred duty to remember extends to never forgetting our children—and, now, their children—have not seen, felt, or known what we experienced. We’re fools to expect they'll independently ascertain the gravity of what they’re playing with when they put themselves at risk of contracting the virus. As Therese did, we must reveal to them AIDS in all of its heartbreaking ugliness. We must tell them stories of its unbearable suffering and sorrow. We must keep it before them, even though they look away. In Deuteronomy 4.9, God commands, “Be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” May hearts of compassion and desire to please our Creator compel us to obey.

Amen.

The More They Stay the Same

2011-11-30T05:00:00.006-06:00

In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all thing things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (2 Peter 3.4-5)

Futility

At last night’s Bible study, we were handed four questions to help center our thoughts in these early days of Advent. More or less, they asked us to identify what comes easiest to us while contemplating Christ’s imminent birth and what we find most difficult about it. After pondering the questions silently, we paired up to exchange responses. I didn’t have much. I mentioned the Black Friday shopper who pepper-sprayed 20 people in a crazed lunge to get her mitts on a videogame, and wondered how the proverbial “we” failed her, so that she’d ever think such behavior was justifiable. I couldn’t get my arms around what it had to do with Advent, other than its challenge to maintain one’s sense of proportion. The distance between the Nativity’s irrevocably world-changing magnitude and its intimate humanity boggles the mind. Year after year I stare across that expanse with no idea how to bridge it.

Walking home, I realized my high-minded thesis wedged itself between the real answer and me. I’m most exasperated by Advent’s sense of futility. The season’s grandiose rhetoric about hope and salvation doesn’t square with stumbling through darkness, brushing against any number of monsters—within and without—that fit Yeats’s ominous portrait in “The Second Coming” (1919):

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

There is (for me, at least) an inarticulate dread lurking beneath Advent’s longing for light and deliverance. Each year brings us no nearer to awakening the dormant possibilities wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. We could spend from now to Christmas rehearsing woes we visit on the weak, defenseless, and, ultimately, ourselves. The more things change, the more they stay the same—only there’s more of it because less changes. While we’re stranded in our quagmire, Advent rolls around, urging us to hold out for light. “Salvation is coming!” it cries. One hand clutches the promise. The other unfurls an open palm to signal, “Enough."

God Isn’t Slow

Doubts and cynicism that pock our Advent road have tripped many before us, going back to first-century believers beleaguered by the same sense of futility we often feel. Fully persuaded he’s writing in “the last days,” Peter addresses increasingly prevalent fatigue and resignation in the Early Church—and he’s not very kind to those affected by it. “In the last days scoffers will come,” he writes in 2 Peter 3.4-5, “scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all thing things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!’” He blasts those who confess pangs of futility for using them to excuse not doing the hard work of God’s kingdom. Clearly many have quit their faith and reverted to carnal living. But one suspects more than a few are just plain weary. The bloom is off the rose; the promise has lost its luster. They’re wondering, “What’s the use?”

Peter’s frustration with disillusioned believers comes from being on the Movement’s front line, where he witnesses progress daily. He mingles with higher-ups and preaches to huge crowds, whose lives are radically changed by the Gospel. From where he sits, everything’s happening too fast; for those far removed from Christianity’s epicenter, it appears that nothing’s happening. Thus, Peter stresses we’re not equipped to gauge what’s going on, as we have no measure for God’s timing. “With the Lord one day is like a millennium, and vice-versa,” he says. (v8) “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some think of slowness,” he explains, “but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” What feels like futility is, in fact, impatience. Human timing shoves us way out in front of God. Hearing God say, “I’m coming,” we yell back, “What’s taking so long?” But God isn’t slow. We simply think so, based how little we know. Our mistake.

The Real Story

Insane though it sounds, the good news of Advent is there’s no news. Things will always change and always stay the same. Our inability to fix us defines the human condition. It confirms why we need a Savior—why Advent’s renewed hope in Christ is our surest means of never losing hope. If we could cure hatred, violence, greed, and every other self-destructive urge splashed across our front pages, of course we’d have done it. Meanwhile, what’s not reported is the real story. Right now, tens of millions of believers travel this Advent road with us, reaching for the same promise, stubbornly living it day and night, refuting every base instinct that captures the media’s morbid fascination.

We’ll never measure the light Christ brings to the world. We’ll never tally the lives Christ enables us to rescue, hearts we mend, nor the violence, poverty, and tragedies we prevent. But this we know: our hope and faith in Christ empowers us to do what we’d never even attempt without it. We resolve Advent’s tension between futility and hope by removing our shortsighted blinders and changing our tune from “Give Up” to “Hold On!” Our sense of timing, not purpose, is what’s off. Could it be what we’re waiting for is already happening, has always been and always will be happening? As long as God’s with us, whether or not things change, that will stay the same.

God Whose promises are true and Whose timing eludes us, disabuse us of impatience masked as futility. Expand our vision to discern Your will and presence alive and active wherever faith abides. Restore the drive and assurance we’ve lost to world-weariness. Lead us home. Amen.

Our hope for the world is secure because we’re in the world, and our hope in Christ refutes every base instinct seeking to destroy hope. That story will never make the front pages. Nonetheless, it’s real, and it will never change.

Postscript: “Only Hope”

Always the last to show up for the parade, I only recently found this powerful Mandy Moore recording (from the film, “A Walk to Remember”). When I feel myself sinking into futility and impatience, I pull it out: “So I lay my head back down/And I lift my hands and pray…”

Nurseries

2011-11-29T01:15:00.006-06:00

I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. (Ephesians 3.16-17)

A Very Real Nerve

It would verge on dishonesty to say Walt and I have ever seriously considered having children. Our temperaments and professions predispose us to a rather freewheeling manner of life incompatible with sound parenting. For the sake of all concerned, we leave the most important task any human can undertake to those better equipped to succeed. Still, the question pops up now and then, posed by friends who insist we’d be great parents. We ceased trying to debunk that myth long ago. Now we deflect the suggestion by admitting this much: the nursery would be spectacular. We’re both remarkably adept at short-sprint projects, and we can envision throwing our entire energy (and a hefty chunk of our resources) into creating a lavishly outfitted home for a newborn. But a child isn’t a design accessory; it’s a lifetime commitment, which neither of us is convinced we have stamina or tenacity to fulfill.

Lack of parental experience—and, I suppose, instinct—narrows my access to the Nativity. While those who’ve brought life into the world intuitively project their experiences onto the story, we who’ve not known what that’s like can only objectify its joys and uncertainties. We see them, but we don’t quite feel them. On the other hand, Advent’s anticipation and preparation for a forthcoming event touches a very real nerve in all of us. Each of us has looked down a long road, pinpointed a destination, and met with pleasure and frustration in getting there. For me, Advent invariably brings to mind nursery building—not from having done it, but from knowing what it entails. Most of all, I find it to be a powerful metaphor. For what is Advent if not the time to contemplate and construct a home in which the newborn Christ can dwell?

In Us

The Christ Child enters the human narrative from multiple angles. By divine right, He assumes His role in history as its most dominant figure. He also takes His place in His immediate world, where His birth summons the attention of shepherds and kings. In terms of Israel’s Messianic scheme, the nature of His nativity secures His prophetic bona fides—ultimately qualifying Him to redefine the Messiah not as a Deliverer Who founds an earthly kingdom, but as the Door through which we usher God’s kingdom on Earth. Regarding our relationship with God, He is the Word made flesh, the mortal manifestation of the forever Divine, Who stands where our consistent failure intersects with God’s constant grace.

On these levels, Jesus’s birth is a singular achievement; it happens through none of our doing. Our participation emerges in faith that Jesus comes to make His home in us. And it’s impossible to overstate how crucial this aspect of God’s great plan is. Without our involvement as vessels that house Christ’s presence, the Nativity’s historic, prophetic, and theological import retains little significance—and no relevance whatsoever. Without us, it’s another myth construed to explain human behavior in a cosmic context. Without us, the Christmas miracle we marvel at is neither miraculous nor marvelous. Jesus comes to make His home in us. That’s what takes our breath away.

A Useful Prototype

Thus, Advent presses us to soberly consider the home we’ll provide the nascent Christ born to live in us. What will our nurseries be like? What must we clear to ensure the Infant’s safekeeping and wellness? What must we add to nurture His growth and development? What will we need to heighten our attentiveness to His demands and cement our bond with Him? These aren’t easy questions with obvious answers. They can only be resolved by prayerful self-honesty (and the pain that often accompanies it), as well as sincere application of Scripture’s counsel as to what housing Christ’s presence requires.

Paul submits an extremely useful prototype in Ephesians 3.16-17: “I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” We replace the clutter of human logic and personal doubts by drawing on God’s infinite wealth of inexplicable grace, goodness, and steadfast favor. We partner with the Holy Spirit, Whose comfort and guidance provide inner strength with power to forego codependency on nagging fears and weaknesses. We furnish the Infant’s nursery with faith in Christ as the transformative Agent Who endows our capacity to be His home.

Lastly, Paul informs us while we plan and construct our nurseries—and every day thereafter—we’re being rooted and grounded in love. This dynamic process becomes the defining attribute that identifies us as Christ’s dwelling. First Corinthians 13.4-7 exquisitely portrays love’s behavior, saying it’s patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way. It’s not irritable or resentful. It doesn’t praise wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Being rooted and grounded in these traits guarantees the Christ Child will abide in an authentically loving, trusting, disciplined environment.

Advent’s Mystery

And therein lies Advent’s mystery. It primes us for innumerable contradictions the Christ Child brings to us by seeding contradiction in our preparation to welcome Him. We make a home for Him so He can make His home in us. Inviting Him to dwell in us is how we dwell in Him. We welcome, nurture, and sustain His presence by drawing from it. We defeat dark fears and doubts with transparent trust. We obtain power to believe in Christ through faith in Christ’s power. We open our hearts to ready love by confessing how unready we are to love with open hearts. Nothing about our nurseries makes sense—yet all of it makes sense, starting with the imponderable reality that the unsurpassed possibilities born in Bethlehem remain impossible until they're alive in us. May your nurseries be as glorious as the Child Who dwells in them.

Eternal, Incarnate God, we’d be fools to say we understand any of this. Yet somehow we get it. May Advent fire our passion to make ready a home for You so You may make Your home in us. Inspire us to enlarge on what we’ve already done. Endow us with new courage and creativity to exceed our earlier efforts. Amen.

Advent prepares us to make a home for Christ so that Christ might make a home in us.

Postscript: "Into My Heart"

This sumptuous rendition of the classic children’s hymn says it all.

Martha Syndrome

2011-11-28T00:12:00.005-06:00

Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10.41-42)

Addled

Sherry Peyton’s comment on the previous post (see below) opened a wealth of insight regarding a concern that troubles many of us at this time of year. Remarking how easily we’re sucked into the holiday frenzy, she cited the famous episode in Luke 10.38-42, where Jesus visits His disciple, Martha. Luke all but says He arrives without warning. Martha welcomes Him to her house. But once she’s got Him situated, she gets preoccupied with proving she’s a worthy host. (Her theme song could be “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d’ve Baked a Cake”.) While she’s making dinner, pulling out china, changing linens, and—if she’s like a lot of us—hiding clutter she’d rather Jesus not see, her sister, Mary, shows up.

Finding Martha’s left Jesus alone, Mary takes a seat beside Him on the floor, never offering to help her sister. The longer she and Jesus talk the more agitated Martha gets. It takes little imagination to read the thoughts stewing in Martha’s brain while she stirs her pots. Mary knows I’m devoted to Jesus and how humiliated I’ll be if everything’s not perfect… She wouldn’t even be here if He weren’t here—and He’s here because I’m here… If she were any kind of sister, she’d take over so I could visit with Him… Listen to her! Finally, she snaps. She storms out of the kitchen and does that nasty thing we’ve all done—or, at least, thought of doing—when family or friends get under our skin: she tries to shame Mary in front of her Guest. But Martha’s so addled she overshoots and embarrasses Jesus. “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me,” she wails. (v40)

Seeking Attention

Let’s leave Martha’s head and slip into Jesus’s shoes. What would we say to a host so wound up about impressing us that she completely loses it and blurts out, “Can’t you see the pressure I’m under because you dropped in out of the blue?” Surely Martha doesn’t mean that. Still, it’s what we’d hear. We’d reach for a tactful exit speech: “We’re so sorry. Why don’t we do this another time, when you’ve had a chance to prepare and we can all enjoy ourselves?” Jesus isn’t so quick to let Martha off the hook, however. He came to her house, she welcomed Him, and He wants to stay. He’s seeking attention, not looking to be impressed. We watch Jesus sympathetically shake His head as He says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (v41-42)

Before Sherry mentioned it, I never perceived this story as an incisive Advent allegory. Yet now that I think about it, I’m not sure the Gospels provide a better example of how readily we get caught up with the details of Christmas—spending all of our time in the kitchen, if you will, making sure everything’s perfect, and smoothing over our preoccupations by insisting the Christ Child deserves our very best. While we rush though more errands than one day can comfortably contain, juggle more to-do lists than we can manage, thumb through recipes, write menus, hang lights and tinsel, move furniture to make room for the tree and all that goes with it, our Guest sits in a corner, waiting for us to give Him what He values most and most deserves—our attention.

What must He think, as we subject ourselves to unbearable stress, ostensibly to prove our worthiness and devotion? What does He hear, when we say our excessive doing and giving and getting is “what Christmas is all about”? How does He respond, after feeling pushed beyond the breaking point turns our carols into complaints? We know what we’d do. We’d politely take our leave and postpone future visits to a vague “later,” which we may hope will never come. Not Jesus. He came to us, we invited Him in, and He wants to stay.

The Better Part

Listen to what He says: “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” The commercialization of Jesus’s birth—feeding off the unfortunate marriage of Christ’s Mass to winter solstice rituals and symbols—preys on our desire to exalt this holy day above all others. We talk endlessly about “the meaning of Christmas” and “Christmas memories.” We break our backs to serve the most fabulous feast ever. Then we clear it away, wash the dishes, and give thanks we’ve got a year before having to do it all over again. We photograph our festivities, hanging on to every moment. Then we store our videos and pictures with past Christmases and, but for rare occasions when we pull them out, forget they’re there. Meanwhile, the better part of Christmas—the truly meaningful, memorable part—is lost because we’ve not given it attention it deserves. Yet when we pry our focus from the feast and its trimmings and attend to our Guest, what we receive stays with us for life.

If deciding how best to celebrate Christmas were as simple as either/or, we’d be immune to Martha Syndrome. We’d turn off the oven, put the credit cards away, and ignore the clock in order to spend more time with Jesus. Realistically, though, Christmas is a yes-and proposition. Yes, first and foremost, we must see that Jesus is given the attention He seeks. And we must take care to show Him the honor He rightfully deserves. We go wrong where Martha goes wrong. The unexpected privilege of welcoming Christ into our homes and lives throws us off kilter. The occasion stops being about Him to become all about us. Sure, we’re aware He’s there—and surely He’s aware that we’ll get to Him as soon as we’re finished with fine things we want to do because He’s there. Nonetheless, we should be clear-headed about our choices during this, the most sacred of all seasons. Displaying devotion to Christ is secondary to what Christ seeks. “I need only one thing,” He says, “and that’s the better part.” Not the whole part, the better part. Ever the gracious Guest, Jesus realizes how thrilled we are to have Him with us. He understands our compulsion to go beyond the ordinary because of how much He means to us. No matter how crazy we get, He wants to stay. But He also wants us to learn the “us” part isn’t the better part of Christmas. The “Him” part is.

Cherished Guest, forgive our vulnerability to frivolous worries and distractions. Cure us of Martha Syndrome. Help us to see the better part of Christmas is the only thing You need; the rest can wait while we honor You with our attention. We welcome You and pray You find us worthy of Your presence. Amen.

It’s the classic Christmas dilemma: we mean well, but the season’s high spirits carry us away. While we’re stressing over every little detail, our Guest is left waiting for us to provide the only thing He needs.

Postscript: The Antidote for Martha Syndrome

We don’t need to make everything pretty and perfect for Jesus. All we have to do is throw open the door and say, “What a marvelous surprise! The place is a mess, but let’s not worry about that. Make Yourself at home. Tell me what You need and I’ll be a most attentive host.” Few songs capture that Christmas spirit better than Bob Bennett’s “You’re Welcome Here”.

The Tender Time

2011-11-26T01:17:00.006-06:00

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that He is near, at the very gates. (Mark 13.28-29)

The Most Impossible Ways

The other night Walt and I fell asleep to a local channel that airs “The 700 Club” each morning. When we awoke to the pseudo-news program hosted by far-right zealot and doomsayer, Pat Robertson, my first impulse was to grab the remote and punch in random numbers; anything would be less toxic. But his opening froze me solid. “It looks like Israel’s set to launch air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities,” he said—or something to that effect. I stared at video cobbled from file footage and nebulous sound bites (with nary a word from high-ranking Israeli, Iranian, US, or European officials), while an ominous voiceover indicated Israeli bombers were queued up, ready to go at any moment. Visions of World War III erupted in my head as I raced for the American networks, BBC, and France’s Canal 5: not a whisper about imminent Israeli air strikes anywhere, not even in the news crawls. “What a boogey man!” I sighed, feeling like a dunce. But was I?

It’s no secret that Israel has plans in place to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities, nor that its penchant for self-serving acts of aggression has become a constant source of regional grief and worldwide angst. Robertson’s sky-is-falling scenario wasn’t beyond the pale. It just wasn’t true—yet. That it starred two loose cannons (Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu) on opposing sides of humanity’s longest-running race war certainly leant it credibility. Once again, threatening disaster confirmed we live in perilous times, when monomaniacal powers and people exhibit no concern about shipping the rest of us to Hell in a hand basket for the sake of their obsessions.

A nearly identical atmosphere hung thick with jitters and gloomy prospects hovers above Mark 13. It's there that Jesus warns the disciples not to be alarmed by global instability and religious hysteria, but to remain watchful in their work for the Kingdom’s sake. We’ve heard this a lot lately: “I will return. Be ready.” Though theories abound regarding the Second Coming, the essence of His message is lost on no one. We approach each moment as if it’s our last before The Big Moment. And while slating this passage as Sunday's Gospel seems a bizarre choice to kick off Advent's anticipation of Christ's birth, its overtones of wakefulness couldn’t be timelier. In an age when the worst of all possible worlds seems all too possible, Advent reassures us that God reaches us in the most impossible ways.

A Longer View

Scholars call Mark 13 (and its mirror passages in Matthew 24 and Luke 21) “The Little Apocalypse,” citing it as a miniature precursor to The Revelation’s epic nightmare. An innocent—rather sweet—comment prompts its litany of dark predictions. A disciple, perhaps visiting Jerusalem for the first time, looks at its magnificent Temple and architecture and says, “Wow!” To which Jesus replies: “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (v2) After the group leaves the city to relax on Mt. Olivet, Peter, James, John, and Andrew—the first disciples—ask Jesus privately, “When will Jerusalem be destroyed? Will there be signs that it’s soon to happen?” Before we get to His response, we should note their lack of curiosity about why or how the city will fall infers widespread assumption it’s only a matter of time. (As it turns out, the Romans raze the Temple and much of the city in 70 CE.) Thus, Jesus’s answer in verses 3-23 is a short-range forecast not to be misconstrued as end-time prophecy. Regarding Jerusalem's demise, He tells the disciples to expect an upsurge in religious chicanery, warfare, earthquakes, and famines. They will be unjustly tried, persecuted, and hated because of Him. When these events start to materialize, Jesus says, “Head for the hills, because it’s going to get crazier by the minute.” Bogus messiahs will pop up everywhere, performing signs and wonders that might even fool them. “Be alert. You've been warned.” He says. (v23)

Then Jesus offers the disciples a longer view—and the pending chaos He just described sounds like a picnic. “After that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken,” He says. (v24-25) The Son of Man will come in the clouds, dispatching angels “to gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heaven.” (v26) Jesus cautions, “When you see these things, know that He is near" (v29), adding in verse 32 that only God knows the day or hour when they’ll transpire. He closes in verse 37: “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Watching, Waiting, and Ready

Realizing Jesus gave them more information than they need—but not much they can actually use—might lead the disciples to think, “Thanks for nothing.” On further reflection, however, they’d find the inconspicuous gem tucked inside His end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it preview. In verse 28, He advises, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” And that’s where this highly problematic text's Advent message coalesces.

Advent is the tender time, when bleak realities of our wintry world give way to revived hope and first signs of renewal. What we perceive as grim likelihoods and inevitabilities are simply the dying gasps of an overlong season. Whatever happens in the world at large and in our own lives will happen. We accept that by admitting very little of what affects us rests in our control. Yet none of it possesses sufficient power to halt time. Without fail, fragile rigidity brought on by anxieties pass with their passing. Sooner than we imagine, persistent fatalism yields to resurgent faith. As we reacquaint ourselves with the organic flow of God’s calendar, we rediscover how supple and resilient we truly are.

The Christ Child appears at the height of global chaos, when new technologies give rise to corruptive wealth, militaristic overkill, unprecedented oppression, and fabricated myth. The Incarnate God enters the worst of all possible worlds at the least likely moment to reach us in the most impossible ways. Nobody sees it coming, yet there it is, and very soon it's apparent the harshest human condition cannot prevail against the tenderness of divine spring. It occurs so suddenly we’ll miss it if we’re not watching, waiting, and ready to receive it when it comes. That's what Advent wants us to remember most of all.

O God, we come to another Advent, praying You’ll steer our attention from the bleak winter pounding at our doors so we may rediscover the tenderness blossoming within. We watch, wait, and stand ready for You to rid us of fearful rigidity. Make us supple and resilient once again. Amen.

Advent teaches us the bleakest circumstances can’t prevent the resurgent tenderness of divine spring.

Postscript: Advent at S-F

As in previous years, Straight-Friendly will observe Advent by resuming daily posts on Monday—most being reposts of earlier reflections (and labeled as such). Sunday and occasional midweek posts will be new. Whether revisiting a familiar entry or exploring a fresh one, I trust you’ll drop by often and enrich this tender time we share with your personal thoughts and invaluable insights. Praying a blessed, tender Advent for one and all, I can think of no finer jump-start to the season than R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the Word As We Know It”.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height, down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...

Always, In All Circumstances

2011-11-23T18:31:00.005-06:00

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5.16-18)

Continuing a tradition begun last year, Straight-Friendly celebrates Thanksgiving in song—with an emphasis on giving thanks when we may not feel like it, when true gratitude may set us apart, and when the complexity of life frays our connection to thankfulness as an act of faith.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

“Take a Little Time,” Andraé Crouch

“Now Thank We All Our God,” Lincoln Minister School Chamber Choir

“Gratitude,” Nichole Nordeman

“In Everything (Give Him Thanks),” The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

“Jubilate Deo,” The University of Utah Singers

(Rather than translate “Jubilate Deo,” I’ll let these charming you fellows do it.)

“Thanksgiving Song,” Mary Chapin Carpenter

“For All You’ve Done,” Hillsong

“Simple Gifts,” Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

Prayer of Thanks, Rabbi Lazer Brody

“Be Grateful,” John Legend & Roots, featuring Jennifer Hudson

Always, and ever, I thank God for all of you!

Richness as a Reflex

2011-11-20T08:46:00.004-06:00

The righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” (Matthew 25.37-39)

For thus says the Lord GOD: I Myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out… They shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture. (Ezekiel 34.11, 14)

The Issue of Lives

The Occupy Movement has taken a ribbing from TV pundits and late-night comedians. Yet—other than those pathetically enslaved by neoconservative, me-myself-and-I doctrines—no public sector has cried out against its ingenious strategy to change the economic conversation from tax policy to social justice. Pitching their tents on financial centers' doorsteps forced us to face the ugly realities of thousands done in by soulless graft. With dispossessed, unemployed, and other beleaguered citizens tucked away in outlying tent cities, welfare motels, and overcrowded shelters, the nation’s wealthiest percentile felt no shame in whining about potential tax increases. They tried to divert accusations of greed by posing as “job creators”—thus, deserving special protections in order to fix a crisis they contributed to and profited from.

By voluntarily existing as economic refugees, Occupy activists awakened public consciousness to the issue of lives, not dollars; morals, not money; people, not power. A society that coddles the mightiest at the expense of the weakest invites crippling instability and certain decline. A nation that subjects many to hardship while succoring a few denies its greatness. Leaders who tout freedom to justify socioeconomic inequities are neither freedom and justice’s guardians nor equality’s champions. (All they are is living proof there’s more to patriotism than pinning a flag to one’s lapel.)

Participation in a just society begins by denouncing the right to choose who is and isn’t worth attention, or when it’s right and wrong to come to another’s aid. Such choices are pre-decided for the community’s welfare and stability. Attention must be paid to everyone who needs it. The time to help the less fortunate is all the time. The Occupy Movement confronts Americans with their civic duty to oppose favoritism that undermines national stability and the common good. In the final public discourse before His arrest (Matthew 25.31-46; Sunday’s Gospel), Jesus charges us with the same responsibilities, for the same reasons. But He raises the stakes by stressing that failure to honor His principles exposes us to grave personal risk from which we can never recover. His gist boils down to this: the issue is lives. Morals. People.

Rich Enough to Care

Since arriving in Jerusalem for Passover, Jesus hasn’t stopped talking about His imminent departure and telling stories about people entrusted with great wealth and responsibility. Most of His followers get it by now. More perceptive disciples may even gather the theological implications, understanding Jesus’s Messianic role centers on establishing God’s kingdom and entrusting it to us. In case they missed this in His parables, however, Jesus uses His last preaching opportunity to paint a dramatic vision of how it will work.

When the Son of Man comes as Earth’s Supreme King, Jesus says He’ll gather the nations and, like a shepherd does with sheep and goats, divide the people into two groups. He’ll commend the sheep, saying they fed Him, gave Him drink, welcomed Him, clothed Him, cared for Him when He was sick, and visited Him in prison. Those He praises are befuddled. “When did we do that?” they ask. The King replies, “Just as you did it to the least member of My family, you did it to Me.” (v39) He turns to the goats and says they failed on all counts. “What do you mean?” they protest. “We saw You never wanted for a thing!” The King answers, “But you ignored the least. So you ignored Me.” The story ends with both groups in shock. One can’t believe it’s rewarded with eternal life; the other can’t believe it’s sentenced to eternal punishment.

I always get a kick out of the sheep’s consternation. Their response explains why the King honors them so highly. It’s as if they ask, “What’s the big deal? We had it, they needed it, and so we gave it away, knowing there’s more where that came from.” What made them rich enough to care was not caring about riches. By calling them “sheep,” Jesus evokes Judaic respect for their virtues: faith in the shepherd, obedience, humility, and so on. Most of all, sheep exemplify community. The tiniest threat to the littlest lamb endangers the entire flock. When pasture is plentiful, all are fed. Otherwise, all suffer, because the flock’s stability relies on its ability to share. In contrast, goats are fiercely territorial, acquisitive creatures that lock horns the instant they sense one of their own encroaching on their space. (That’s why we associate gentleness with lambs and brutishness with goats.)

Stability and Growth

In Sunday’s reading from Ezekiel 34, we’re once again reminded God is our Shepherd. “I Myself will search for My sheep, and will seek them out,” God says in verse 11, vowing we will “lie down in good grazing land” and “feed on rich pasture.” (v14) God goes on to say in verse 16, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” The prophecy gets us to the essence of what Jesus wants us to see. It’s not ours to decide who merits our attention and when we should reach out to the least. Instead, we’re asked to choose how we regard the riches of God’s provision. We can either turn God’s goodness into a crippling burden or use its richness as a reflex. Either we obsess about hanging on to what we’ve got or we intuitively give it away, knowing there’s more where that came from.

Offering compassion, hospitality, and concern to those in need demands tremendous discipline and, often, staggering emotional sacrifice. But it costs us nothing. And in the end, it prospers communities we serve and us with enduring stability and growth. It should come so naturally we do it without thinking or talking about it. That’s difference between the sheep's “What did we do?” and the goats' “Look what we did!” Jesus teaches that true goodness isn’t defined by its doers’ abilities, but by its recipients’ inabilities. The least capable among us gain our highest attention because their needs are greatest. It’s that simple. And if that upsets and surprises us, Jesus tells us we’re in for a really upsetting surprise.

Free us, O Shepherd, from selfishness and insecurities and competitive streaks that endanger our communities and ignore Your commands. You’ve provided more than we need, enabling us to give it away without hesitation, knowing Your goodness is inexhaustible. Instill that truth so deep inside our being that it becomes instinctive. May we be counted worthy in Your sight. Amen.

The richness of God’s goodness to us enables us to give it away without hesitation or thought, knowing there’s always more where that came from.

Let's Go Up

2011-11-16T02:25:00.004-06:00

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122.1)

Till Every Exile Comes Home

What gracious Facebook friends I have! Besides linking posts on Straight-Friendly’s group page, I also put them on my personal page, dropping them on family and friends. Every time I post a link, I hear a lot of them groan, “Here he goes with that stuff!” Yet, other than a couple tightly wound Christians, not one has charged me with overstepping. In fact, I’m often surprised and moved by positive responses from people I considered unlikely to show any support. Ever the optimist, I imagine those who’ve not said anything pro or con view the links favorably. Meanwhile, the realist in me argues that many dislike what I do and are too polite to complain. The truth, I guess, lay in the middle. Most probably breeze by my stuff as I do much of theirs, because Facebook is the Land of the Unhidden Agenda, where any and everyone can say what’s on their minds and keep saying it until they’re tired of saying it—usually long after people tire of hearing it. Whether or not my FB friends look kindly on what I say and do there, it’s a smart bet they’re over it by now, many of them wishing I’d give it up and move on. Sometimes I wish I would, too. But I can’t.

When God’s Spirit and Word spoke healing to my heart, it broke anew for multitudes of LGBT and straight believers unjustly ostracized by foul doctrines of fear, shame, and rejection. Assurance that nothing can separate us from God’s love won’t let me quit saying so till every exile comes home. Compared to the task facing those of us who hear the Spirit call the Church to renew its first love—the Gospel of grace, equality, and inclusion—I know my efforts don’t carry a flea’s weight. Yet having so little to offer compels me to do all I can in the biggest way. With regrets to those who are weary with me, I suspect this obsession is with me for life, gaining insistence the closer we get to a day when Christians of every gender, ethnicity, orientation, class, and persuasion are joyfully, freely welcomed by all members of Christ’s Body.

Can—will—that day arrive? Along with believing there’s no good reason why it can’t, I find no use in excuses for why it won’t. Or so says my optimist. It never saw a mountain it couldn’t scale once faith in God’s power and trust in God’s purpose entered the picture. Oddly enough, my realist, who generally sides with logic and skepticism, doesn’t disagree. It does, however, stop short of buying the dream without caveats. Reviving the Apostles’ doctrine of Christ’s acceptance relies on us forsaking prejudices and myths that wormed their way into our traditions, fractured our unity, and corroded our witness. That’s a tall order.

Belittling a Few to Mass-Market Belonging

Since many who govern Christian lives obtained and hold power by preaching fear of rejection, we can’t imagine they’ll champion equality and inclusion. Early in the Christian movement, it became clear the leader with the biggest draw held the most clout. Not a few figured out that barring select groups was the quickest, surest way to pack the house with would-be insiders. For centuries, those charged with advancing the Gospel have built huge, slavishly devoted followings by fueling an intrinsically covetous desire to have what others can’t get. Twisting Scripture every which way—or, if that failed, inventing exclusionary “theologies” from whole cloth—they present the Church as a members-only organization, not the let-everyone-come organism Jesus brought to life with His blood. As a consumer strategy, belittling a few to mass-market belonging couldn’t be more effective; its replication in every ad touting status or getting ahead verifies that. One thing’s certain: it inflates many prelates and pastors’ self-importance and makes a lot of them very rich—every one of them fully aware that hawking the Gospel to endorse exclusion negates Its truth and cheapens the price Christ paid to substantiate It. Exclusion is the most subversive, dangerous doctrine ever visited upon Christ's Church.

You’d expect the shameful history of religious wars, public strife, and private torment brought on by Christian exclusion would cause every leader in every faith community to demand it cease, regardless if they care or even understand that true discipleship is defined and measured by Christ’s command to love God and others without restraint. But here’s the rub. Nullifying doctrines of inequality and exclusion cancels all power to leverage fear of rejection as a control mechanism and campaign tactic, which many in authority can’t afford to do.

Humanly Impossible

Suppose churches literally became what Jesus indicates they should be: safe harbors where none is rejected and all are equally entitled to God’s grace. How would that work? It’s humanly impossible. Despite the New Testament’s outlay of church governance, only a lunatic would try to hold such an unmanageably diverse and needy crowd together. With nothing to fear, what’s not to lose? Without sinners to keep out, there’s nothing to keep saints in. If Jesus means what He says in John 6.37 (“Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away”), and if the Spirit and the Church actually say what Revelation 22.17 says (“Let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”), we’re looking at a managerial nightmare. Not that there will be much to manage. Nobody joins a club that lets anybody in.

My realist urges me not to lose sight of the scarred history, ingrained traditions, and nagging insecurities that plague the priestly caste at the summit of the mountain that my optimist hopes to conquer. Waiting for an invite like the one in Revelation wastes precious time. That offer has stood since Christ stepped out of the tomb. It will forever stand. There’s no excuse for stalling in the valley, starving for community and nurture until those at the top send invitations barreling down the hill. If that’s what it takes to press our way toward inclusion, we ain’t going anywhere for a while, because what we’re waiting on ain’t coming any time soon.

Those occupying the mountain may rule it to their liking. But they don’t own it and can’t stop us from climbing it. So why keep murmuring about high officials and lofty communities too terrified of falling to budge? They don’t have to come to us—and we need to stop wishing they would. What they do or don’t do to end the Church’s long night of exclusion has no impact on us. God gives all exiled believers a fear-free, outrageously joyful answer to their dilemma. It’s not a demand or denial. It’s a decision, delivered on wings of a song that says, “Let’s go up.”

Going to Meet God

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”

Most of us raised in church grew up singing one or another version of Psalm 122.1. Composers have set its lyric in every style and genre—from toe-tapping, let’s-get-our-praise-on versions that emphasize the “glad” end of the sentence to richly sacred hymns that evoke the privilege of entering God’s house. Psalm 122 is the third in a 15-song suite (120-134) known as “The Songs of Ascent,” sung by ancient Jews while climbing Jerusalem’s Temple Mount (a.k.a. “Mt. Zion”) for festival services. These songs surpass others that extol Temple worship. They’re informed with a sense of community and stubborn hope. They span an enormous range of emotions, referring to the best and worst of Israel’s experience. As worshipers look up to the Temple, they repeatedly describe a God Who watches over them. Their joy mounts as they sing; reciting how far they’ve come makes vivid where they’re going. It’s bigger than going to church out of obligation (like many part-time Christians do at Christmas and Easter). They’re going to meet God, every song drawing nearer to God’s dwelling.

A fascinating aspect of The Songs of Ascents surfaces with four (122, 124, 131, and 133) composed by the Temple’s visionary, David, and a fifth (127) by its builder, Solomon. Yet these songs are written like the rest: in the voice of a commoner marveling at God’s goodness and power. Israel’s two greatest kings join the procession—not out of noblesse oblige or politically savvy solidarity. Implicit in their point of view one finds an electrifying confession of faith. This is God’s mountain, God’s house, and they, along with every pilgrim, are God’s people. They own these truths without presumption of owning what belongs to God. Canny recognition of what’s theirs and what’s God’s frees them from inequities and fears that shatter community and sanction prejudice.

David and Solomon leave their palatial heights to ascend Mt. Zion with their people. They surrender authority as Israel’s anointed leaders to honor Who’s really in charge. And while Israel habitually backslides into exclusionary policies, both kings consistently take a hands-off approach regarding elitism. God’s awesome reality in their own lives—made real by keen awareness they’re undeserving of divine favor—stays before them. In Psalm 131.1-2, David writes, “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.”

The Spirit of Ascent

This is the spirit of ascent: the mightiest man in Israel admitting he’s not big enough to take the reins from God. Weighty matters exceed his knowledge and authority. Much of what happens around him is unmanageable. What God demands is humanly impossible. Yet David doesn’t grab for control to retain to power and position. He’s so smart about where his authority ends and God’s begins that he celebrates his limits. And when the call goes out—“Let’s go up to God’s house”—he’s thrilled. It’s a little thing. But he does it in a big way.

When we answer the call to go up, we bear in mind our ascent is about meeting God where God dwells. We concede our limitations while doing what we little can in a big way. With that comes a lamentable concession that not every church is a house of God. Many don’t nurture organisms where faith thrives and all are invited to take the living water as a gift. They’re merely clubhouses—organizations whose members define themselves by what they’re not instead of Whose they are. They’re founded on covetous desire to have what those who don’t fit the accepted profile can’t. They preach and practice belittlement to conjure a false sense of belonging, status, and getting ahead. Thus, we have to free ourselves of the idea that boycotting worship because expertly marketed clubs won’t admit us proves anything. Our ascent bypasses such places without a glance. They’re not where we want to be, nor should be. Not being welcome is our first indication they can’t provide what we need. We’re climbing God’s mountain to meet God. Jesus promises never to drive us away. The Spirit and the true Body of Christ says, “Come.” We must own these truths.

A New Normal

In every Christian exile there’s a profound longing for a safe home where none is belittled and all belong. Those we find will, in many cases, be nothing like those we left. Our trek isn’t intended to return us to clubhouses that mock God’s sovereignty and our making. Our ascent leads to homes that defy the norm in obedience to a new normal. Once we start filling up authentic houses of God, members-only mentality will self-destruct. Fear of rejection will lose its luster, and physical, emotional, and spiritual violence born of exclusion will cease. For that to go, however, we must let go fantasies that homes where we’re not wanted or appreciated will suddenly change their ways. Mistaking magical thinking for faith-bred optimism can be as paralyzing and unproductive as stubborn denial.

Though it seems those occupying the summit hold the power and write the rules, nothing could be further from the truth. The power resides in us. The only rules that merit attention are laid out in God’s Word. They’re not hidden in obscure passages or legalistic fine print, either. They’re writ large in Old Testament commands to welcome the stranger and embodied in Christ’s life and teachings. God’s Spirit beckons us to God’s house. Let’s respond gladly. Let’s go up.

You call us to Your mountain, to meet You in Your house, O God. Forgive our reluctance to climb. Make us glad as we go up and lead us safely home. Amen.

There’s no excuse for stalling in the valley, expecting an invitation to come rolling down from those who occupy the top of the hill. Power to go up and meet God resides in us.

Assuming Risks

2011-11-13T05:06:00.004-06:00

The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. (Matthew 25.16-18)

Mutually Beneficial Outcomes

Business that took me to San Diego last week offered an opportunity to visit with our financial advisor, his wife, and their two-year-old son. Before their recent move to the West Coast, Walt and I counted them among our favorite couples to spend unhurried evenings with, and the chance to see how they’re doing in their new place—if only for an hour or so—gave us too much important stuff to talk about to discuss money. As it is, my financial conversations with Byron are typically brief for two reasons. My head isn’t wired for money matters; it shuts down the instant the charts and graphs come out. More important, we have total faith he has our best interests at heart. Because he knows and cares for us, and wants to please us, he treats our assets like his own.

Our discussions usually begin by him saying, “Here’s what I’m doing with our money,” and end with me saying, “If it works for you, it works for us.” In between, he’s legally obliged to disclose risks we assume if we take his advice. Given his faithfulness as our friend and advisor, precautionary measures seemed silly at first. Then he explained why they're important to him. “You stand to lose money—which is never pleasant, but can always be remedied. I stand to lose your friendship, trust, and respect. That can’t be fixed. If the law didn’t require it, I’d still go over what’s at risk to assure you I’ve weighed the options to make the wisest decision—for both of us.” The explanation beautifully summarizes the investment dynamic Jesus describes in Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 25.14-30). His story of a man who entrusts large sums to three servants is all about assuming risk, weighing options, and wise decisions—and how honoring the master’s faith yields mutually beneficial outcomes for two of the three servants.

No Growth Without Risk

Matthew buries the parable’s lead by not telling us much about the master’s character until the third servant scrambles to justify not generating gains with what he’s given. “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,” he says. “So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” (v24-25) These days, when we’re inundated with exposés of Ponzi schemers, robber barons, and Wall Street flim-flam artists, we immediately suspect this guy’s working some kind of angle. We’re suddenly very wary when he hands one servant five talents, another two, and a third a single talent before departing on a trip. (Scholars estimate one talent equaled 15 times an average worker’s annual income. Jesus is talking a lot of cash here.) We shudder as the first two rush off to wheel and deal with his money—and we’re relieved they’re able to double it. Imagining their fate if things went wrong, the third servant’s decision to bury his talent doesn’t look so foolish after all. With the least to gamble, he’s got the most to lose.

So why does the master call him “wicked and foolish” (v26) and those who take big chances “good and trustworthy” (v21)? Why does he reward their risky behavior by giving them more, while taking back what he gave the other servant, saying he should have known not to play it safe? (To add insult to injury, he hands the talent to the first servant, who risked more than the others combined.) Why does he invite the first two to “enter the joy of your master,” yet banish the third to “outer darkness” (v30)? If he’s as greedy and conniving as we’re led to think, avoiding his wrath at all costs is the smartest thing a servant can do, as it witnesses true loyalty and respect.

The master doesn’t see it like we do, because he’s not the predator we presume him to be. He’s a brilliant venture capitalist in the business of funding risk. He reaps where he doesn’t sow and gathers where he doesn’t scatter seed in return for providing the seed and ground it grows in. Expecting those he entrusts with wealth to assume risks to create more wealth, it’s his right to demand they weigh the options and make wise decisions that benefit him and them. What the third servant views as harshness is really sound management. The master empowers his people to take risks, and those who know and understand him don’t hesitate do so. They’re less concerned with results than honoring his trust. As a canny investor, he’s aware that markets and harvests fluctuate. He knows taking risks invites potential disappointment and frustration. Yet it’s nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, as there can be no growth without risk. The first two get that. The third earns his master’s ire by lacking will to grow. Poor grasp of his master’s plan and fear of punishment witness not a shred of faith in the one he serves. It’s true: he’s wicked and lazy and deserves to be fired on the spot.

Them That’s Got Shall Get

According to Matthew, this is Jesus’s final parable before He’s arrested. In light of its timing, then, we ascertain Jesus refers to Himself as the demanding master who endows his servants to manage his investments while He’s away. He cautions us we’ll be judged and rewarded in scale with what we’ve done with what we’re given, which is by no means a negligible sum regardless how our talents compare to others’. The only commentary Jesus inserts into the story surfaces in the master’s fury with the risk-averse servant—and it’s a stunner: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” (v29) Jesus wants us to recognize the value of what we possess and He expects us to risk all we have to create greater wealth from the wealth He’s entrusted to us. Burying it where no one can find it may seem smart. But it’s a wicked, lazy approach that reveals not a shred of understanding or trust in Christ.

I’m also convinced the parable contains less overt messages that we need to hear. While faith is our most precious and holy possession, we’re foolish to imagine it needs our protection. What’s more—and you may want to fasten your seatbelt for this—fearing God’s wrath does neither God nor us a service. Indeed, Jesus says what comes of being afraid of God’s punishment is the surest way to experience it. We are not called to spiritual stasis. We’re called to grow. That demands courage to assume risks, weigh options, and make wise decisions. In 2 Timothy 1.7 Paul writes, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” Burying our talents for fear of losing them puts us at greater risk than any chance we’ll ever take to grow the power, love, and self-discipline God entrusted to us. Jesus couldn’t be more explicit in warning us risk-averse cowardice leads to an unhappy ending. And it’s no surprise we should find this so surprising. As Billie Holiday put it, “Them that’s got shall get; them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, and it still is news.”

Lord, You know better than anyone we’re surrounded by third servants frozen with fear of Your wrath. Assuming risks to generate growth is anathema to them. Reignite the power, love, and self-discipline You placed in us so that we’ll reject fear and honor Your trust. For Your sake and ours, strengthen our will to grow. Amen.

Safeguarding our talents may seem like a wise strategy, but it ends up putting us at greater risk than using what God has given us to generate more growth.