When the World comes Apart

Death is an intruder, an uninvited guest who crashes the party. We don’t choose the times when death comes, or the places where death comes, or the way that death comes, or the people for whom death comes. Death just comes. It stalks us our whole lives long, and then one day it reaches out and grabs hold of us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Two of my son’s classmates from high school died this week. He’s shattered. Thirty-somethings are not supposed to be grieving the deaths of the people they grew up with. Grandparents – yes. Aunts and uncles – yes. Even parents – yes. But not the people you went through school with as a kid, people who have finally figured out who they are and what they want from life, and who are just beginning to make some meaningful strides in the direction of that future they have claimed for themselves. To be taken then is especially cruel. There is a special anguish to the death of someone who has just begun to live. The death of a thirty-something underscores the sinister nature of death, why it’s called our “enemy” (I Corinthians 15:26).

The author of Hebrews said that we live our entire lives as human beings in the bondage of our fear of dying (2:15). Vitezslav Gardavsky (1923 – 1978), the Czech poet, playwright, and philosopher, traced the outlines of this familiar fear when he hauntingly wrote – “That I die means that I cannot complete my work. I will no longer see those I have loved, and I will no longer experience beauty or sorrow. The unrepeatable music of this world will no longer ring in my senses; never again will I anywhere or in any way move out beyond myself.” Death destroys and denies. It strikes at the very heart of what we say we believe is true and value as good. Death, especially an early death, is a psychic fruit basket upset. It jumbles things.

When our worlds fly apart, the very first thing we need to do is to find the eye of the storm, the still point at the center around which things spin, and where we can be held secure. In the Eastern Church, praying the “Trisagion” is a reliable way of getting there. The “Trisagion” (The “Thrice Holy”) is a prayer that says –

“Holy God,

Holy Mighty,

Holy Immortal,

have mercy on me/us.”

The Eastern Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov explained the meaning of this three-fold invocation of the name of God –

“Holy God –

The Father, the source of holiness is the Holy;

Holy Mighty (and strong) –

The Son, who triumphs over death, is the Strong;

Holy (and) Immortal –

The Holy Spirit, the breath of life, is the Life-Giver.”

The Eastern Church prays this prayer at the moment of catastrophes. It is prayed in the burial service when the body is interred. It’s a prayer that expresses the Church’s faith in the resurrection, the re-establishment of what is normal, what they describe as its “ontological healing.”

According to the “Shepherd of Hermas,” an early Christian text, it is “the name of God that sustains the world.” As the Christ hymn of Colossians 1 explains, “In Him all things hold together” (verse 17). It is through prayer that we seek the experience of this equilibrium, and the “Trisagion” prayer is a specific way of seeking this healing of our woundedness. It’s a way of restoring order to the disarray. It’s a way of asking for peace in the storm by naming the God who stills the wind and calms the sea.

When our days “collapse into chaos” and we are left feeling helpless and hopeless, praying the “Trisagion” it is a way of deliberately placing ourselves and the world back into the hands of the God who made us, who loves us, and who is saving us. This act clears a space big enough for hope to sprout and for ways of helping to break forth.

What the Church wants you to know when there is an unexpected death…

First, stop kidding yourself, and start expecting your death. Every year on Ash Wednesday we get smudged with ashes, a sign of penance and mortality, and we are told straight-up that we are going to die. We are numbered among the things that are passing away as the liturgy says, and spiritual wisdom comes from numbering our days (Psalm 90:12). Every unexpected death is a chance for us to wake up (Luke 13:4). [P.S. – There are no unexpected deaths…]

Second, come to terms with what it is that Christianity is about. The way our Bibles are put together helps us see how underneath and behind all its different stories, characters, ideas. and instructions, there’s a unifying theme, an organizing principle. It’s said that what’s in the Bible solves a problem and answers a question, and it is unmistakably clear to me that the question that the Bible answers, the problem that it solves is death, physical death, certainly, but especially spiritual death. The Bible opens with a warning about what causes death (Genesis 2:17). It closes with the death of death (Revelation 19:14-15), and the promise of a time when death will be no more (Revelation 21:4). And in between that opening and closing, it tells a story that climaxes with Christ dying on a cross and being raised from the dead on the third day. The center of gravity for the Christianity that I know is John 11:25 about how Christ is the resurrection and the life and how that means that we will never die, and Romans 8:31-39 about how because Christ died and was raised that nothing, not even death, will have the power to separate us from the love of God. Because of this, we can trust ourselves and our loved ones when death comes, God made us. God loves us. God holds us. God can be trusted. Christ proves it.

Third, use the fact that you are going to die to rightly order your priorities and values right now. It’s been pointed out that, “No one on his deathbed has ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work!” This popular proverb underscores the counsel of Ephesians 5:16 to “make the most of the time.” When we know that we aren’t going to be here forever, or even for very long in the grand scheme of things, it can “concentrate the mind wonderfully,” as Samuel Johnson put it. This is why Jesus talked about laying up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21), and why Paul spelled out what it is that “endures” when everything else passes away – faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:13). Cultivating the eternal perspective will invest us in the things that last. Stop thinking that you’ll get to it in time. Time is not guaranteed.

Fourth, keep your bags packed. That’s how good Pope John XXIII put it in his spiritual journal. He said that he tried to live every day knowing that it could be his last, and that he would have to give “a strict account of his thoughts, words, and actions” to the One who sets the standards for what’s good, true, and beautiful. Knowing this is why the last request in the Order for Evening Prayer that I have most often prayed is that we might be given the grace “always to live in such a state that we may never be afraid to die; so that, living and dying, we might be thine.” And this is why in the spiritual tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, the faithful are taught to pray daily “for the completion of our lives in peace and repentance,” and “for a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ.”

In his little book “On the Theology of Death” (Herder and Herder, 1961), the giant 20th century Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (1904 – 1984), pointing to the way that the two thieves on the crosses beside Jesus died, noted that death can be extinction or fulfillment. We all run the course of our lives toward the same finish line of death, but we don’t all run towards it in the same way. Some run “protestingly,” while others run “lovingly and trustingly.” We can experience the end of life as a matter of “falling into the emptiness and the powerlessness of death as remoteness from God,” or as “a falling into the hands of the living God, who is called Father.” And what it will be for us, he said, is fixed by our free choices for or against God now. Not to think about death because it is an unsettling thought to us, is not to take “this earthly life with radical seriousness,” and that would be a terrible waste, and such a shame.

“Befriending Death”

Peter Kreeft, the very fine Christian Philosopher who teaches at Boston College, says that death wears five faces – that of an enemy, a stranger, a friend, a mother, and finally, a lover (“Love is Stronger than Death” – Ignatius Press – 1992). This continuum moves from negative and alienating perceptions of death – “enemy” and “stranger” – to more positive and intimate perceptions – “friend,” “mother” and “lover.” This book with its development of these fives “faces” of death is more than worth the effort it takes to read, but the big idea I’m interested in is the journey by which this change occurs, how death ceases to be the enemy we avoid at all costs to the friend that we welcome and perhaps even embrace.

This is what the spiritual author Henri Nouwen described as the process of “befriending death.” In his 1994 book”” (Harper Collins), Henri Nouwen asked –

“Is death something so terrible and absurd that we are better off not thinking or talking about it? Is death such an undesirable part of our existence that we are better off acting as if it were not real? Is death such an absolute end of all our thoughts and actions that we simply cannot face it? Or is it possible to befriend our dying gradually and live open to it, trusting that we have nothing to fear? Is it possible to prepare for our death with the same attentiveness that our parents had preparing for our birth? Can we wait for our death as for a friend who wants to welcome us home? “

The Eclipse: A Spiritual Rorschach Test

The eclipse today is proving to be something of a spiritual Rorschach Test. In a Rorschach Test a person is shown an ambiguous inkblot and is then asked to describe what they see. What a person says they see is then taken as an indication of their inner psychological and emotional state. Today’s eclipse has had this same effect on some people spiritually. Some are taking it as a sign of some impending apocalyptic upheaval.

“The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” Jesus said in his end times discourse on the Mount of Olives in Matthew 24:29-31. This imagery of cosmic shifts in the heavens and the disruption of familiar patterns here on earth were stock images in the Biblical worldview and vocabulary for a Theophany – a God appearance in time and space. Go back and read the accounts in the book of Exodus of the plagues in Egypt or Moses’ contact with the Living God on Sinai during the giving of the Law. Cosmic portends were vivid ways of talking about spiritual realities and Divine encounters. When God shows up, scary stuff happens.

This is the language Peter borrowed from the book of the Old Testament Prophet Joel to explain the events of the day of Pentecost – “And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day” (Acts 2:19-20/Joel 2:30-31). Peter painted with these colors again in his second letter when he turned his attention to delay of the Second Coming of Christ that had unsettled some people in his churches (2 Peter 2:8-13). Peter assured them that the promise of “new heavens and a new earth” was sure, and that its arrival would be signaled by that same sort of cosmic disturbance. And you don’t have to read very far into the book of Revelation before the mayhem in the heavens begins as the end draws nigh.

The folks who are taking today’s eclipse as a sign of the end of the world (something human beings have almost always done with eclipses, comets, and all other strange astronomical happenings) are taking their lead from this part of the Biblical witness. It’s part of the story, and to just write them off as crackpots is not going to foster the kind of faithful conversation that ought to be characteristic of a community that names Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Rather than scolding or shaming those who see the eclipse as a signal of doom, I’d like to talk with them instead about how there’s another faithful way to think about it. I see something else in this cosmic inkblot.

The Biblical portends in the heavens of the Consummation are all signs of cosmic disorder, disruption, and destruction. But an eclipse is a sign of the exact opposite of this. NASA keeps a precise record and has an accurate schedule of them. We’ve known for years now the exact moment of the exact day of the exact path of this total eclipse. And we already know this about the next total eclipse, and about the one after that, and about the one after that. An eclipse is a sign of cosmic order and of God’s continuing providential care, not of disorder, disruption, and destruction.

The Christ Hymn of Colossians 1 celebrates the way that “in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth,” and how “in Him all things hold together” (1:15-20). An eclipse is a better sign of this than of the Bible’s standard description of the chaos that the final dissolution of creation causes. Peace not panic is the right response to an eclipse. The moon crashing into the sun like a pool ball careening into another pool ball on a pool table – that would be a cause for some concern. That would prompt some appropriate doom and gloom. It would be hard to live in a universe where planets moved in unpredictable and unexpected ways. But an eclipse is not evidence of this.

An eclipse is instead good evidence that God has “set the planets in their courses above” as both Scripture and our beloved hymnody proclaims, and we should probably see in the predictable patterns of the natural world the common grace of a God who has ordered the universe and sustains it in such a way that human thriving is possible. This common grace is what Paul talked to the people of Lystra about in Acts 14:15-17 when he established the reality and goodness of God by pointing to how God as the Creator “made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them,” and how God as the Sustainer “does good and gives us from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying our hearts with food and gladness.”

Richard Mouw says that the first and most important theological decision we all must make is whether we think God loves us and wants to bless us both temporally and eternally, or whether we think God is mad at us and wants to make us just as miserable as He possibly can both temporally and eternally. A long time ago I concluded that God is good and generous based on what I knew about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Because of Christ I know that God is not reluctant to save us. Sure, our freedom leaves open the possibility for us to turn away, but God’s grace – what I see so clearly in the face of Christ – means that this isn’t what God wants. As Eugene Peterson whispered into his son’s ear each night as he tucked him into bed when he was just a little boy – “God loves you. He’s on your side. He’s coming after you. He’s relentless.” And I hear this same whispered message from our heavenly Father in today’s eclipse –

“The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.” (Psalm 19:1-4)

Gratitude and not fear is what I will feel as I sit in my backyard this afternoon wearing those special glasses from Walmart watching the sun darken as the moon passes between it and me. This eclipse is not a sign of God’s displeasure with us. We’re not on the eve of destruction. I take it as a sign of God’s care instead, and of His eternal desire to bless us all.

That’s what I see in the inkblot.

The “Eclipse of Heaven”

On Monday we witnessed an eclipse in the heavens. Today, deep into Eastertide, I’m thinking about the “eclipse of heaven.”

That’s the name the late A.J. Conyers gave to his 1992 book published by InterVarsity Press. In “The Eclipse of Heaven” he told the story of his family’s visit to a historical park in South Carolina called “Old Dorchester,” a Colonial era village and fort. Among the ruins are the bell tower of the village church and the cemetery surrounding it. Standing next to the flat headstone of one of Old Dorchester’s first citizens, Dr. Conyers said that the tour guide read part of the Burial Service from the 1768 Book of Common Prayer, words that would have been spoken over that grave 250 years ago.

With feigned seriousness and sanctity, he intoned the liturgy with a preacher’s voice –“Man that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live… In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O LORD, who for our sins art justly displeased? …Thou knowest, LORD, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us …suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.”

And then Dr. Conyers said that the tour guide looked up at them and winked. “Why did he wink?” Professor Conyers asked, and answered – “It was because he knew very well that he shared a secret with us – with all of us, whether from Ohio or the Carolinas, or Timbuktu. …The secret we share is simply that we no longer take ‘otherworldly’ sentiments seriously. Ideas about the brevity of life, the last judgment of present sinful life, in short, all that devalues this life and prefers the next world, all that fears lest we jeopardize an eternal state in the enjoyment of a temporal existence – all these topics are simply not part of common polite, serious conversation.”

Heaven is in eclipse. In 1982 Morton Kelsey began his book on the “Afterlife” with the observation that the very first Christians “outlived” and “outdied” their spiritual competitors “because of a conviction that their lives went on into greater meaning.” He said that they “even believed that they had tasted something of the reality of the future kingdom of heaven in their experience of their risen Lord.” But Morton Kelsey lamented the fact that more recent Christians have “not shared very deeply in this hope.”

He wrote about a conversation he’d had with a Lutheran pastor who told him that in ten years he’d never preached a sermon on life after death, and he talked a discussion he’d had with two Catholic priests who told him that it would be hypocritical for them to talk about life after death since they didn’t believe that there was “anything in store for human beings after this present life.”

Morton Kelsey said that this was something that had developed in the church over a long period of time. “Christians do not often speak with confidence today about life after death.” He said that there is precious little conversation in the average congregation about what becomes of human beings when we die. “Only at funerals is the topic mentioned,” Morton Kelsey observed, and then only in “a half-hearted way.” More recently, the Roman Catholic Theologian John Thiel has described this as the refusal of the preachers and teachers of the Christian Faith “to speak flourishingly about the ‘last things,’” leaving people who live on “the cusp of the afterlife” without the hope, courage, and peace generating resources that so many Christians before us found so helpful. Today’s Christianity is “thin” at precisely the place where the challenge to life is often the “thickest,” at the “boundary” of death and dying.

The eclipse of heaven was forcefully driven home to me by a blog written in 2021 by Frederick Schmidt, the Professor of Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, on the campus of Northwestern University.

He began by quoting things he said he’d heard his students say –

“I need to talk.  I’ve been asked to preach at my father’s funeral, and I don’t believe in the Resurrection anymore.”

“I don’t know what to say at a person’s funeral.  After all, they don’t have anything to look forward to.”

Dr. Schmidt wrote – “Statements like this are the kind of thing that one expects to hear at any funeral, when the death of a loved one cuts through the families and friendships of anyone who dies.  But they are both examples of things that I have heard seminary students say, deep into the course of their theological studies.” He says there are a number of reasons why a seminarian might say something like this –

“They may be working though their faith with seriousness for the first time.  That process can unearth questions.  It may test the degree to which a student has explored his or her faith.

Seminarians usually arrive with some kind of commitment to the church and its message.  (There is little good reason to pursue a theological education if you don’t.)  But the church itself may have done a poor job at catechesis.

The baseline materialism of contemporary America may further exacerbate a seminarian’s faith.  And it is often when confronted directly with the doctrine of the Resurrection that students discover just how deeply that materialist understanding of reality has invaded their thinking.

Then, again, seminarians are also taught not to believe in the Resurrection, or they are offered a version of it that is cast exclusively in terms that are metaphorical, symbolic or political.”

And then Dr. Schmidt concluded – “Almost every reason a seminarian might struggle that I have listed above makes sense to me.  To struggle with your own beliefs, to confront them and think through them, to realize that the culture around you has sabotaged your faith – this is the stuff of serious formation.  And clergy who have done their work and won-through to a robust Christian faith can be powerful defenders of the faith and skilled pastors to those who seek their help. The last reason, however, does not. …To be taught that the Resurrection didn’t happen or to be taught that it is a metaphor or symbol of something social, political, or personal, flies in the face of the church’s teaching. If seminarians are decisively shaped by that instruction, they will be seminarians to ‘cross their fingers’ when they take their ordination vows or – if they are at all honest – abandon their work for other endeavors.”

Sitting in church these past few weeks of Easteride, I’ve found myself deeply stirred when the Great Thanksgiving of the Liturgy that’s being prayed says – “It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.”

Pastor Ben Haden said that “the world has a gurgle in its throat when it comes to death, but the Christian can speak with total confidence.” I hear that confidence in the liturgy, and it moves me. But when it’s a church that has “a gurgle in its throat when it comes to death,” then I know that heaven is in eclipse there. Their “bugle gives an uncertain sound” (I Corinthians 14:8) creating confusion and sowing the seeds of distrust and despair.  “By his death Christ has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again Christ has won for us everlasting life.” Preachers and churches are free to reject this, but I will not entrust the care of my soul, or the souls of those I love to them.

I need more than a gurgle.

“Swearing to your own Hurt” – Matthew 5:31-37 | A Sermon preached on Sunday, February 9, 2014

I have a nephew in the Special Forces of the United States Army.  My sister and brother-in-law never know when he is going to be sent out on a mission, or what that mission is going to entail, or how long he will be away.  His life is so secretive and mysterious to us that we eagerly devour anything that might give us some insight into what he does – articles in the paper or a magazine, features on the television news shows, books and movies about the Special Forces.  And so it was that a couple of weeks ago I found myself in a darkened theater to see the movie “Lone Survivor.”

I knew what to expect.  I’d read the book.  I already knew the wrenching story of “Operation Red Wings” in Afghanistan back in 2005, and how a mission to target a Taliban leader by a 4-man reconnaissance team went badly; very, very badly.  I knew that before the story was through, that 3 of those Seals would be killed and that 16 others would die in a failed attempt to rescue them.  I was prepared for the agonizing telling of this story.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the story of the Afghan villager who took the lone survivor into his village, and in the ancient tradition of something called “Pashtunwali,” put himself in-between the Taliban fighters and this gravely wounded American serviceman.

In the mountains of Afghanistan there is a code of honor among the Pastun people that goes back for more than 2,000 years, and part of it says that a host must protect a guest even if it means risking his own life and the lives of his family and friends.  And this is exactly what happened in the debacle that was “Operation Red Wings.”  The reason why there was a “lone survivor” in this story at all was because an Afghan village took him in and then defended him with their own lives, and that decision is still costing them. That village remains a Taliban target.  They have sworn to destroy it and to kill all of its residents, and yet, when asked if they regret their decision in taking in our wounded soldier, they say that they would do it all over again.  And when asked “why?” they will tell you about how their commitments define them as a people and dictate their actions.

Take a look at the Bible verse that we used this morning for our “Word Watch.”  Every week there is a Scripture at the top of the first page of your bulletin that we’ve deliberately chosen and put there for you to meditate on before worship begins.  This week it’s from Psalm 15 –

“LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle?  Who may dwell on Your holy hill?  He who walks with integrity… who swears to his own hurt and does not change…”

This is what the scholars call an “entrance liturgy.”  When people arrived at the Temple in Jerusalem for worship they were met by priests at the gates who asked: “Why should we let you in?” and “What makes you think that you have any right to be here?”   

Biblically, this is a question about “righteousness” – “Are you doing what’s right?” “Are you in a right relationship with God?”  And part of the answer that came back from the people who were trying to get in to worship was: “We are doing our best to live our lives with integrity.  When we say that we are going to do something, we do it even if it turns out badly for us and actually winds up costing us something.”  That’s what “swearing to your own hurt and not changing” means.

Recently the CEO of Thomas Nelson, the major American Publishing House of Bibles and popular Christian devotional books, learned that a former executive with his company had made a commitment to a third party via e-mail.

“It was obvious that he hadn’t researched the cost of his promise, nor did he get anyone else’s approval. The CEO was not even aware of the obligation until the other party brought it to his attention. And when he learned that the cost of the commitment was north of six figures, he gasped. Several rationalizations immediately popped into his head:

– The executive was no longer at the company.                                                   

– He obviously didn’t count the cost.                                                                    

 – He wasn’t authorized to make this commitment.                                           

– This project was already under water.                                                             

– This amount was not in their budget.                                                               

– He wasn’t even aware of the commitment.                                                       

– And the CFO wasn’t aware of the commitment either.

However, after a few moments, the CEO remembered that their first core value at Thomas Nelson is “Honoring God.” They amplify this by saying that “We honor God in everything we do.” They then go on to describe the behaviors that express this value, and the fourth item on that list is:

We honor our commitments, even when it is difficult, expensive, or inconvenient.”

That brought everything into clear focus for him, and he noted that this behavior was initially motivated by Psalm 15:1,4:

‘LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? … He who swears to his own hurt and does not change.’

Simply put, the CEO of Thomas Nelson concluded, this means that our word is sacred.” (Michael Hyatt)

It’s the sacredness of our words, and the commitments that lie behind them that Jesus was talking about in our Scripture lesson this morning.  Jesus expected His people to be known for their integrity, for the way that we would keep our word and do what we promised to do regardless of the cost.  This is a rare quality these days. 

We live in an age of “the path of least resistance.”  We’ll do things for as long as it’s good for us, for as long as it’s meeting our needs and makes us happy.  But if a commitment should start to inconvenience us; should it start to cost us something; should some commitment that we’ve made start to pinch and scrape us, well then we’ll start looking for a way out that allows us to keep face.   This is why that story about those Afghan villagers and that story about the decision of the CEO of a major American Publishing House who each “swore to their own hurt and did not change” are just so striking.  They behaved in unexpected ways; in ways that run counter to the prevailing cultural flow. 

We expect politicians to lie to us.  We expect products to fail.  We expect relationships not to last.  We expect institutions to let us down.  But Jesus told us:  “This is not what I expect of you as My disciples.”  Let your “yes” mean “yes,” and your “no” mean “no,” Jesus said.  And then, to make His point directly, Jesus talked about one of the main areas where our commitments take daily shape – our marriages.  You see, for Jesus, integrity was not some abstract, ethereal concept; a philosophical ideal.  It was immediate and practical.  It had to do with how you treat the person with whom you are living in the most intimate relationship of all, your wife or your husband. 

Divorce is such a personal and painful experience for so many of us, that when the Scriptures talk about it, we get a little skittish; some of us might even feel like putting our hands over our ears and running away just as fast and as far as we possibly can.  I suspect we’re like this because we expect the Bible to condemn us.  We’ve got a pretty good hunch that whatever the Bible might have to say to us about divorce, that it’s only going to compound the feelings of shame and guilt that we’re already feeling.   We’re afraid that it’s just going to rough us up further.  But, if we would lower our guard just long enough to actually hear what Jesus is saying in our Scripture lesson this morning, I think that we might actually be surprised by the grace of what Jesus has to say.

Among the teachers of the Law in Jesus’ day there were some who had a rather lax view of the commitment of marriage.  They allowed a man to divorce his wife for any dissatisfaction at all that he might be experiencing with her, and this is what Jesus was opposing in what He had to say in our Scripture lesson this this morning.  The commitment of marriage was just too sacred in His eyes to be frivolously set aside by some whim of fancy or by the first whiff of difficulty.  Marriages are supposed to last. That’s the first thing that Jesus tells us in our Scripture lesson this morning.  But as we all know, not all of them do. 

Clearly, there are choices that we can make and actions that we can take that have the power to kill a marriage.  And that’s the second thing that Jesus tells us in our Scripture lesson this morning.  There’s a realism to His words.  Marriage bonds can be shattered by unfaithfulness, and it’s incredibly painful when they are.  But when this happens, we’re not finished.  Serious as it is, contrary as it may be to what God intends for us, destructive as it is to people and their highest hopes and deepest dreams, when a marriage fails, we do not come to the end of the story.  

Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. That’s the piece that’s missing in so many of the conversations about divorce that I’ve heard in the church through the years.  It seems to me that there are those who want to make divorce different from any other contradiction to God’s revealed will in which we might personally have a share.  The grace of God in Jesus Christ that promises to make us new and to give us a chance to start all over again as “new creations” apparently has an exception, and it’s divorcees. 

Even when this is not said out loud by the church – and frankly I’d be quite surprised if you ever heard it around here – it’s still heard in the hearts of so many divorcees, and that’s because divorce has this powerful and unique capacity to condemn us.  Divorce is a fundamental upheaval in our identity and intention that affects us in our deepest places. And when it happens, when there is a broken commitment, this is when we need to know that repentance, forgiveness and restoration is the pattern of the Gospel. 

When we confess our sins, “He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” John tells us in his first letter (I John 1:9).  As the refrain to an old Gospel song that makes me very happy every time I sing it puts it –

“Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty rolling sea; Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain, All sufficient grace for even me; Broader than the scope of my transgressions, Greater far than all my sin and shame; O magnify the precious Name of Jesus, Praise His Name!“

God’s grace is broader than the scope of my transgressions, this hymn says; it’s greater than all my sin and shame.  So, just exactly what does this leave beyond the reach of God’s restoring grace?  Divorce? I hardly think so!

Of course, Jesus Christ wants us to be people of integrity as His disciples, people who keep their commitments, people whose “yes” means “yes” and whose “no” means “no.”  The reason why this matters so much to Him is because this is how He relates to us.  This is the basis of our relationship with Him.  When we keep our commitments it points to the way that God keeps His commitments to us, and that gives our lives a “question-posing” quality just like we experienced here this morning when we heard about those Afghan villagers and that Thomas Nelson CEO.  It’s unexpected behavior that cuts against the grain of culture and that leaves people who witness it wondering why – Why are they like that?  And the answer for us as Christians has got to be – because this is how God in Jesus Christ is with us.  And ironically, where this shows most powerfully is not in our stretches of faithfulness, but in our episodes of unfaithfulness.

When we don’t keep our commitments, God still keeps His.  As Paul told his young associate in ministry, Timothy – “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).  And this is the power of the Gospel.  We are loved by God in spite of ourselves, that’s the truth at the center of His commitment to us, and it alone has the power to change us. God’s forgiveness of our unfaithfulness when we fail to keep our commitments is an important part of God’s faithfulness to us.  And the renewal of faithfulness in us, seen in the way that we return to our commitments with even greater intensity and intentionality after we have stumbled is one of the first results of a genuine experience with God’s faithfulness.  And what Jesus Christ is telling us in our Scripture lesson this morning is that the life of faithfulness to which He is calling us is nothing more than a reflection of the kind of faithfulness that God has already shown us in Jesus Christ.  We learn how to keep our commitments by seeing how God in Jesus Christ keeps His.

Sources

Hyatt, Michael. “Keeping Your Word.” http://michaelhyatt.com

McKnight, Scot.  The Story of God Bible Commentary: The Sermon on the Mount. Zondervan. 2013.                                                                                                                                                

A Contemplative Approach to the Cross

I’ve been reading Brian Zahnd’s new book, “The Wood Between the Worlds” (IVP  | 2024), this Lent. He describes it as a “Poetic Theology of the Cross.”  “I want to be drawn,” Brian explains early in the book, “into a contemplative orbit around the cross.”  So do I.

The Gospel doesn’t “yield its mysteries” so much to “analytical methods as to mediation,” Brian explains. Believing that theology is more like poetry than physics, and that the things the Bible tells us about God should be approached more like a painting in an art gallery than a law book in a library, Brian wants a theology that makes him sing. He wants to move past the dispassionate academic ways he was taught to critically analyze an ancient text and be ushered instead into an encounter with the same God those ancient texts report as living, and moving, and acting in the experiences of the lives and world of the ancient Hebrews and the very first Christians. He says he wants his Bible to be a “portal into the divine mystery.” When he visited Brite Divinity School as a guest lecturer when I was a student there back in the mid-1970’s, John Westerhoff, the Christian Educator, said that there are some things about our faith as Christians that are better sung than explained, and this is the same point that Brian Zahnd is making in his new book.  Our heads can only take us so far in our journey to God, at some point our hearts have got to take over. As Catherine de Hueck Doherty said, we need to “fold the wings of the intellect to open the door of the heart.” This is easier said than done for some of us.

I am given to explanation. My faith seeks understanding.  It always has. This is my ordinary mode. Loving God “with all my mind” comes naturally to me. But just about 20 years ago I came to what I perceived to be the outer limits of that way being and believing. I could argue the case that God is good. I’d read the books, sat through the lectures, written the papers, gotten a good grade. It wasn’t enough.  I desperately needed to “taste and see” that God was good too (Psalm 34:8). I needed a faith that was less a theory and more a love affair. I needed to undertake that 12-inch journey from my head to my heart again. It’s a familiar trip for me.

Earlier trips to this boundary on the spiritual journey of my life had gotten me born-again (Evangelical), Spirit-filled (Charismatically renewed), better aware of the inner light who is the indwelling Christ (Quaker), and a heart-strangely-warmed (Pietism/Emmaus). This time I set out on that trail intending to become a contemplative, or perhaps more accurately I should say, to open myself to a more contemplative way of being and believing, for this is the work of the Spirit, and as Jesus told us (John 3:8), the Spirit is like the wind. It blows when, and where, and how it wants.

We don’t control the Spirit’s movements. We can’t schedule the Spirit’s appearances.  We don’t manage the Spirit’s work. We can’t engineer the Spirit’s effects. The most we can do is to try to be open to the Spirit’s presence and power, and to try to position ourselves in those places and practices where the Spirit has a history of showing up. The terrain I consciously pitched the tent of my soul on 20 years ago was in the space where silence, liturgy, music, and icons all intersect, and from there the wind of the Spirit blew me eastward, into the world of Orthodox Christianity. And this is where I bumped into Mary. In Eastern Christianity, Mary traverses that same ground, the terrain of silence, liturgy, music, and icons. Twenty years ago she has become my companion on the contemplative way, and my example of what it means to be a contemplative believer.

In his epic 1968 poem on Mary – “A Woman Wrapped in Silence” (Paulist Press) – author John W. Lynch zeroed in on Luke’s description of Mary quietly observing the cosmic events unfolding in her life, and in the life of her Son, and treasuring them, “reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; 2:51). Mary is at the Cross, but she is silent. Luke tells us that she “stood at a distance” with the other women, that “she saw these things” (Luke 23:49) but said nothing.  “Here a woman wrapped in silence,” John Lynch wrote, “and the words were closed within her spacious heart for pondering.” “Through long years of pondering God’s word and cherishing the memory of these mysterious events in her heart, Mary penetrated the truths they held and her understanding of them grew.”

Every Holy Week I return to a Pastoral Prayer I wrote for the last Sunday of Lent several years ago. I don’t just want to go to church this week, I want to enter into the mystery of faith, and so I pray –

Lord, our journey to Easter has turned the corner and is heading for home.  Today we find ourselves stand on the precipice of Holy Week.  From here we can hear the shouts of “Hosanna!” From here we can taste the bread and cup of the Last Supper, feel the wounds of the cross, see the sealed tomb and smell the fear and despair of shattered expectations.  This is familiar terrain.  We know this story well.  We know how it unfolds and where it winds up. 

Save us, Lord, from familiarity and complacency; from the boredom and inertia of being old hands at all of this.  We’ve sung all of the hymns before.  We’ve heard all of the sermons before.   We’ve gone through all of the rituals before.  We’ve prayed all of the liturgies before.  Our appetites have been honed by a culture that craves the new and improved, so teach us to love the old, old story.  Send your Spirit to close the circuit between the needs of our hearts and world, and the promises of grace that you made for us in Jesus Christ. 

Help us to discover the Gospel again, Lord, not just on the pages of Scripture and in the traditions of the church, but in the twists and turns of our lives and in the hopes and hurts of the world.

On Palm Sunday, when we hear about Christ’s triumphal entry, help us to join the shout of the crowd as they cry out for salvation.  Come as Prophet, Priest and King into our hearts and into this church to be our way, our truth and our life. 

On Maundy Thursday, when we hear about the Last Supper, make room at that table for us; a place where we can love and be loved; a place where we can belong and believe.

On Good Friday, as we hear about the way of the cross, gather up our suffering, and the suffering of the whole world, and carry it to the heart of the Father. 

On Holy Saturday, when we hear about Christ in the tomb and the disciples behind closed doors, come and sit with us in our own fears and disappointments.

And on Easter Sunday, when we hear about the empty tomb and the Risen Christ, shift our gaze from then to now, giving us hope for the possibilities of the newness of life, both abundant and eternal.

We don’t need another history lesson, Lord.  We need the assurance of your presence in our lives that are filled with struggle, and we need the provision of your grace to continue to live courageously and compassionately in this very scary world of ours.  We need to know where you are and what you are doing, Lord, so bring us to Holy Week where your story and our stories can intersect and intertwine once again, and then anchor us there where we can know that “resurrection is stronger than crucifixion, that forgiveness is stronger than bitterness, that reconciliation is stronger than hatred, and that light is stronger than darkness,” we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

“Wanted, Not Worthless”

When I was just starting seminary back in 1976, there was a national evangelistic campaign that featured yellow bumper stickers that boldly announced “I found it!” “It” was salvation – redemption, the forgiveness of sins, life eternal and abundant. On the bulletin board outside the dining hall where students posted announcements and advertisements, someone plastered one of these yellow “I found it!” bumper stickers, and others in the community took this as an invitation to comment, a chance to come up with some facetious slogans of their own.  It started innocently enough with a simple question– “What is it?” That got the ball rolling. “If you find it, please turn it into the office immediately,” one said, and that was followed with a – “No, I found it — it’s mine now.” “Well, if you found it, then you can have it because I don’t want it!” was answered with – “Well, you may have found it, but I never lost it.” And so it went day after day until finally one day someone posted – “He found me.”

Dr. George Eldon Ladd, the world class New Testament scholar who taught at that school was famous for saying that the only truly “new element” in Jesus Christ’s teachings about God was that He was a “seeking God” — a God who “takes the initiative to seek out the sinner, to bring the lost into the blessing of His reign” (80).  The Pharisees of Jesus’ day taught that while God “was always [at least theoretically] willing to take the first step towards us, that in actual practice the initiative was almost always left up to the sinner to return to God.” The people in Jesus’ day thought that it was up to them to find God, but Jesus Christ said that it’s God who actually comes to find us, so that whoever posted – “He found me!” –clearly understood Dr. Ladd’s point.  In fact, I sometimes wondered if it wasn’t Dr. Ladd himself who posted it!  And where Dr. Ladd said that he found this great truth of God seeking the sinner most clearly was in the 15^th chapter of the Gospel of Luke.  There are three parables about God seeking and saving the lost in Luke chapter 15.  The first one is the Parable of the Lost Lamb.  And the truth that this parable firmly establishes is the idea that what gets lost gets sought!  The shepherd doesn’t scold, or shame, or spank his little lamb for getting lost; no, he just went after it and brought it back home again joyfully.

Jonathan Dahl’s father died 30 years ago. On his death bed, Jonathan’s father made a final request of him. “Find Jeff” he said.  Jeff was the oldest boy in the Dahl family, and he had vanished one hot August afternoon six years before his father died.  Strung out on drugs after years of failed rehabs, Jeff exploded when his parents refused to give him $35.  He smashed some furniture, kicked in a car door, and threatened to burn down the house.  His father told him to leave, to just go and not come back.  And Jeff did.  He left and had not been seen or heard from by anybody in his family after that day.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Jeff was the oldest and brightest son of an IBM executive who lived in Darien, Connecticut. Jeff was absolutely adored by his kid brother Jonathan.  Jeff was the kind of big brother who would stop to tie his little brother’s shoes at the bus stop, sit with him during lunch in the school cafeteria, and play with him after school.  Jeff was a good athlete and a great student.  Some of his poems were published when he was still in Middle School.  He won trophies for swimming and tennis. He had a steady girlfriend and a full tuition scholarship to college.   Jeff Dahl was every parent’s dream, the picture of success.  He was bright, popular, and gifted — a kid full of promise.

It was when he was a freshman at college that Jeff began experimenting with drugs. It changed him.  He became moody and withdrawn, disinterested and unmotivated. To buy drugs he started stealing things.  He got into trouble with the law, and that’s when he began an endless cycle of drug treatment programs.  During one of these hospitalizations he was diagnosed with a mental illness that’s characterized by uncontrollable urges and sudden emotional outbursts. But the doctors weren’t really sure if Jeff’s behavioral problems were caused by his drug problem or by his mental illness.  They said they needed Jeff to be drug free for six months to know for sure.  Jeff never was drug free for six months.

Jeff was 27 years old when he got kicked out of the family. Later, when things calmed down a bit, Jeff’s father regretted what he’d said to him. He knew that if Jeff had cancer, or had become a paraplegic, that he would never have thrown him out. But Jeff was gone. He’d vanished without a trace.  And then Jeff’s dad got sick himself, and as he lay dying, he made his final request – “Find Jeff.”

The burden of this request fell squarely on Jonathan’s shoulders, Jeff’s little brother.   A writer for the Wall Street Journal who travelled the country chasing stories, Jonathan was in the best position to conduct the search.  And so Jonathan would add an extra day or two onto every trip he took for business so that he could poke around the kind of places where homeless people were likely to be known – shelters, police stations, public libraries, churches with ministries to street people.  Flashing Jeff’s picture to the people in those places, Jonathan would ask, “Do you know him?” “Have you seen him?” In every city he visited, Jonathan would call every Jeff Dahl he found listed in the phone book, hoping against hope that he might just accidently stumble upon his brother. At one homeless shelter he visited somebody finally recognized Jeff’s picture and told him that he thought that he’d gone to Colorado with some friends. Jonathan booked the first flight to Denver he could find.  When he got there, Jonathan tracked down the mother of one of Jeff’s friends, and he got the name of a clerk at an X rated bookstore who know Jeff really well.  After a long conversation with that guy late into the night, Jonathan finally got a phone number, and he sensed that his long search was nearly over.

Jonathan drove around Denver the rest of that night in his rented car waiting for the sun to come up. At dawn he found a pay phone at a convenience store and punched in the number that he had been given.  The phone rang once, twice, three times.  Finally a groggy voice answered – “Yeah,” it said, “What do you want?” Jonathan panicked and hung up without saying a word.  It was Jeff’s voice.  He’d done it.  He’d found his brother.  But after all the years, through all the pain, what was he going to say?  He dialed the number again, and when it got picked up at the other end, Jonathan quickly said, “Jeff, this is your brother Jonathan. I love you.  We miss you. Please come home.”  There was a long pause, and the sound of sobbing.

Luke 19:10 is one of the Gospel’s purpose statements, Jesus telling His disciples why He’d come and what He was there to do – “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” This verse is the punch line to the story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector in Jericho who climbed up in a Sycamore tree to try to see Jesus who was passing by that day.  Zacchaeus was “lost.” He’d betrayed his people, denied his identity, and sold his soul.  It had made him rich, and it had left him isolated, inhabiting the margins of society, estranged from his people and their God.

Jonathan Parnell takes Zacchaeus climbing up the tree to get to Jesus as a symbol of all the ways that we as human beings try to get right with God in our own strength and by our own effort. It’s popular to talk about the spiritual life as a ladder that we have got to climb in order to get into God’s presence and to win God’s favor. “Religion tells us to seek. We are advised to climb trees like Zacchaeus, to depend upon our own exertion for any hope of ascending to the divine.  We are told to bridge the gap by our effort.  If you want salvation, they say, seek it.”  And then one day Jesus comes to town and says, “Hurry up and come down” (19:5).  He’s the seeker.  He’s the Savior.  Zacchaeus didn’t find Jesus by climbing up the tree. Jesus found Zacchaeus by telling him to come down out of the tree and going home with him. “Our seeking – our trying to reach the divine on our own – is silenced when we learn that the divine has reached down to us… by becoming one of us. Here we are, spinning our wheels in hopes of getting to God, and then God… comes to get us. 

“Lost” doesn’t mean “worthless” but “wanted.”
“Lost” doesn’t mean “passed over” but “pursued.”
“Lost” doesn’t mean “inferior” but “valuable.”
“Lost” doesn’t mean “loathed” but “loved.”
“The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, wherever you’ve gotten yourself off to, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, He’ll come. He’s already looking for you.  And when He finds you, what He’s going to say is – “I love you. We miss you. Please come home.” DBS+

 

 

“Are you saved?”

I can still remember reading Jonathan Edward’s (1703 – 1758) sermon – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” – in an American literature anthology when I was in high school, and being absolutely horrified by it.

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you… God’s wrath towards you burns like fire; God looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire…”

 When I was in the 11^th grade, I didn’t think that I was nearly as bad a person as that sermon said I was, and I didn’t think that God was nearly as mean and awful as that sermon made Him out to be.  And if this is what I, someone who actually believed in God and regularly went to church thought about what Jonathan Edwards said in his sermon, then, I wondered, what would an unchurched unbeliever think? I’ve since found it.  If getting “saved” involves the view of God and self that Jonathan Edwards described in his sermon, then they’re just not having it.  But what if getting “saved” doesn’t involve Jonathan Edward’s view of God or self at all?

Back in the day, when students at Yale University would tell Dr. George Buttrick (1892 – 1980), Dean of the Chapel, that they weren’t coming to his services “because they didn’t believe in God anymore,” his standard response was always to say -“Tell me more about this God you don’t believe in anymore because I probably don’t believe in that God either!” And this makes me think that before rejecting “saved” talk because of the spiritual offense of what Jonathan Edwards famously did with it, maybe it should first be wrenched from his grip so that we might look at it from another vantage point.

The New Testament word for “saved” means to be “rescued,” “delivered,” “kept from harm.” It was a word that assumed that there was something or someone powerful out there that’s threatening people; someone or something that’s trying really hard to destroy them.  And the New Testament word for “Savior” was the title given in the ancient world to anyone who was able to keep people from that something or someone actually harming them.  Generals who won great military victories were called “saviors” in the ancient world.  So were ship captains who navigated terrible storms and brought their passengers and cargo safely to port, as were wealthy benefactors who rebuilt cites after natural disasters, as were rulers who brought stability and prosperity to their states.  We do the same thing.  A “Savior” is someone who “saves” people from something horrible that’s happening to them.

When he was just a little boy the preacher David Pratte says that he and some of his neighborhood friends built some rickety rafts to float down the drainage ditch in front of their homes after a big storm (https://www.gospelway.com).  A neighbor warned them that the ditch was deep, that the current was fast, and that the water was muddy. “It’s dangerous boys” he told them. “You could drown if you fall in,” and David almost did.

When his raft predictably capsized, David struggled to get to the shore, but he couldn’t get a good grip on the slippery bank and he kept being pulled away and under by the swift current. When he finally slipped exhausted beneath the dark water for what he thought was the last time, that neighbor heard the commotion from his house, ran just as fast as he could to the ditch and jumped in fully clothed.  He couldn’t see where David was in the muddy swirling water, but he just happened to kick him when he jumped in, and so he was able to reach down and pull David up and out to safety. You saved my life,” David kept repeating to that man that day, “you saved my life.” And to this day David will tell you that he thinks of that man as his “savior,” and the story that the Bible tells us is the story of how God does this for us as human beings.  He jumps into our lives, and into our world, to pull us out of the trouble we’re in.

The Gospel is not as complicated as we sometimes make it out to be. We’re made for fellowship with God, but that intimacy got shattered when we chose to cut God out of our lives, and then everything else in our world began spinning out of control because God was no longer at its center holding everything in good balance and proper orbit.  Seeing the damage we’d done, and understanding the trouble we were in, God began the slow and deliberate process of making His way back into our lives.

Now, when we talk about getting “saved,” I believe that what we’re talking about is God doing this hard work of fixing what’s broken, of repairing what’s gone awry, of restoring us to a right relationship with Himself.  Some Christians, like Jonathan Edwards, when talking about salvation put the emphasis on the negative impact that all of the bad things we do have on God.  What we do wrong makes God mad, and so getting “saved” means escaping His punishment. But there are other Christians who, when talking about salvation, put the emphasis instead on the negative impact that all of the bad things we do have on us.  It makes God sad to see the way we struggle and suffer, and so getting “saved” means that God steps in to help make things better.

I like to read mysteries, and one of my favorite series are the books that the Canadian author Louise Penney writes about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the provincial police force of Quebec, and the quirky little village where he lives with his wife and friends – Three Pines. Armand Gamache is one of the wisest literary characters that I have the pleasure of knowing, and he is forever saying that there are four sentences that we all need to learn how to say as human beings — “I don’t know.” “I need help.” “I’m sorry.”  And “I was wrong.” It’s gotten so that now when people ask me why I think they need to be “saved,” I think in Inspector Gamache’s terms –

• People need to be “saved” because we need help. As the folks in recovery know all too well – we are powerless over so many things, and our lives are unmanageable in so many ways, and only a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and stability. Unlike Jonathan Edwards, my emphasis when thinking and talking about salvation is not that we’re bad and that God is mad, but that we’re in trouble and need God’s help.
• We also need “saving” because there’s just so much that we don’t know. We don’t really know who we are, or what it is that we finally want. And we aren’t really sure about who God is, or what it is that He finally wants. Thus is why the book of Proverbs begins with the declaration that “reverence for God is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7). Jesus meant the same thing when He said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and then everything else in your life will start to sort out for you” (Matthew 6:33). When the fact of God’s existence and the truth God’s being gets fully reestablished in our lives, then we have a firm place to stand, and a sure foundation from which operate.
• And finally, we need “saving” because we’re frequently wrong and we’re often sorry. I know I’m guilty about some of the things that I’ve done in my life, and I’m deeply ashamed of the kind of person that I know I can be at times. You may have seen that bumper sticker that says – “I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.” Well, I’ve got cats and I’m not sure that they even give me a thought except when they want to be fed. So, for me, it’s different.   I want to be the kind of person that I know God created me to be, that Jesus Christ has made possible for me to become again by dying and rising for me, and that the Holy Spirit is right now empowering me – bit by bit and day by day – to actually become.

When I hear the word “salvation” these days, I don’t primarily think about a God who needs to be appeased because He’s mad at us for being sinners, but rather, I think about a God who’s steadily, relentlessly making His way towards us, at great personal cost to Himself, because He knows we’re in trouble, in desperate need to help, and He loves us.

Practically speaking, believing this has some very real consequences for me –

• First of all, I know that every single person I meet every day, all day, is in some kind of trouble. The fact is, we all need “saving.” As Dr. Charles Kemp, my professor of Pastoral Care at Brite Divinity School 40 years ago constantly told us – “Always be gentle and kind to people because everyone is carrying a heavy burden of some sort.”
• And second, I know that every single person I meet is someone for whom Christ died (I Corinthians 8:11). Jesus Christ is the way God makes His approach to us in our need, and it’s what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross and then by getting up out of that borrowed tomb that is how God deals with all of those forces in our lives and this world that seek to work us woe. Jesus Christ is how God jumps into the deep, dark, swirling waters that are pulling us under to pull us up and out.

It was hard for me to see the face, and heart, of the God I knew in Jesus Christ in the things that Jonathan Edwards said about Him in his famous sermon. But rather than throwing the theological baby out of the homiletical bathwater that he was using, I discovered that there are other, better ways of Biblically thinking and talking about the saving work of God in Jesus Christ than the one Jonathan Edwards chose to develop.

Christianity is a religion of salvation. Jesus Christ is the Savior.  Christians are people who have been saved.  And it matters, it really matters, that we who know this firsthand in our own experience of it by faith to then think and talk about it in ways that emphasize God’s goodness and grace in a world where suffering, struggling people are desperately seeking help and hope. DBS+

 

“Thoughts & Prayers” and “Pastoral Malpratice”, Part 3

Part 3

The second crucial conversation that a commitment to “thoughts & prayers” involves us in as Christians is the one that we have with God about the things that can be shown to be what the Bible teaches. This is the third step in the process that Richard Hayes identifies as being what it means to take the Bible seriously. We’ve got to relate the truth of what the ancient texts say to the reality and demands of our contemporary circumstances and situations. As Dr. Hayes explains –

Even if we should succeed in giving some satisfactory synthetic account of the New Testament’s ethical content, we will still find ourselves perched on the edge of a daunting abyss: the temporal and cultural distance between ourselves and the text.

There’s a familiar distinction that often gets drawn between the “letter” of a Biblical text and its “spirit” based largely on John 6:63 where Jesus says – “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life,” and on 2 Corinthians 3:4 where Paul describes the new covenant that comes to us not as a written code that kills but “in the Spirit who gives life.” And while I would not want to drive too deep a wedge between the “letter” and the “spirit” of a Biblical text, I fully appreciate the difference between wanting to know the “letter” of a Biblical text so that I can be intellectually informed, and wanting to experience the “spirit” of a Biblical text so that I might be spiritually transformed.

George Whitefield (1714 – 1770), the Anglican cleric who’s powerful preaching ministry did so much to stir the fires of the 18^th century Evangelical Revival in both Great Britain and the American Colonies, explained –

I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above.

In my mind this is the perfect description of the second crucial conversation that a serious commitment to “thoughts & prayers” will generate in us as Christians. Once we know what’s in the Bible, then we’ve got to come to terms with how it actually applies to us and our lives, and that involves a prayerful conversation with God about what it is that we find in the Bible.

I remember singing the James Russel Lowell lyric in the classic hymn “Once to Every Man and Nation” from the 1953 Disciple hymnal (the best one we ever produced) when I was in Christian College and serving my first few churches in the Pacific Northwest –

“New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.”

It’s not that God’s truth changes, but the contexts, both personal and social, to which those ancient truths must speak certainly do. We ask questions today that the Bible never anticipated. We face situations now that the Bible did not foresee. Go to the concordance in the back of your Bible right now and look up every reference to assault rifles, school shootings, and the Second Amendment, and you will find none. But this doesn’t mean that the Bible is devoid of wisdom to guide us, or that it is without good counsel to instruct us as we seek solutions to contemporary problems.

We may not have chapters and verses to which we can turn to settle a question, but we do have principles that are deeply informed by the weight of the Biblical witness, and that can be prayerfully discerned by paying attention to the Spirit’s promptings in our minds, and by listening to the Spirit’s small still voice whispering in our hearts. As John Robinson (1576 – 1625), the Pastor to the Pilgrims in Holland told them in his farewell address as they left for the New World – the Lord has “more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word.” And it’s the second crucial conversation that a commitment to “thoughts & prayers” generates – the one that takes place between a Christian and God about what’s in the Bible – that’s when, and where, and how we find that truth and see that light.

The idea that we can do away with serious “thoughts & prayers” in the urgency of the demand for meaningful “policy & change” is an ignorant argument at best, and a dangerous argument at worst. And for those of us who are in the “thoughts & prayers” business to give the impression that “thoughts & prayers” are unnecessary and irrelevant is foolishness at best, and unfaithfulness at worst. It’s only as we do our “thoughts & prayers” work with integrity and intentionality as people of faith that we will have anything helpful to say in the public conversation about “policy & change.” DBS +